496 



AUDUBON 



I ^':i :■■,'. 



^■p. 



and as we were returning to Squires we saw flocks of 

 the Chestnut-collared Lark or Ground-finch, whose exact 

 measurement I have here given, and almost at the same 

 time saw Harris. He and Bell went off after the Finches; 

 we pursued our course to Squires, and waited for their 

 return. Seeing no men to help carry the Deer, Michaux 

 picked it up. Squires took his gun, etc., and we made 

 for the river again. We had the good luck to meet 

 the barge coming, and we reached our boat easily in a 

 few minutes, with our game. I saw upwards of twelve 

 of Harris' new Finch (?) a Marsh Hawk, Henslow's Bunt- 

 ing, Emdcrica pallida, Robins, Wood Thrushes, Bluebirds, 

 Ravens, the same abundance of House Wrens, and all the 

 birds already enumerated. We have seen floating eight 

 Buffaloes, one Antelope, and one Deer; how great the 

 destruction of these animals must be during high freshets! 

 The cause of their being drowned in such extraordinary 

 numbers might not astonish one acquainted with the habits 

 of these animals, but to one who is not, it may be well 

 enough for me to describe it. Some few hundred miles 

 above us, the river becomes confined between high bluffs 

 or cliffs, many of which are nearly perpendicular, and there- 

 fore extremely difficult to ascend. When the Buffaloes 

 have leaped or tumbled down from either side of the 

 stream, they swim with ease across, but on reaching these 

 walls, as it were, the poor animals try in vain to climb 

 them, and becoming exhausted by falling back some 

 dozens of times, give up the ghost, and float down the 

 turbid stream ; their bodies have been known to pass, 

 swollen and putrid, the city of St. Louis. The most ex- 

 traordinary part of the history of these drowned Buffaloes 

 is, that the different tribes of Indians on the shores, are 

 ever on the lookout for them, and no matter how putrid 

 their flesh may be, provided the hump proves at all fat, 

 they swim to them, drag them on shore, and cut them to 

 pieces ; after which they cook and eat this loathsome and 



