1850 TO 1865 299 
Lt. Couch U. S. A. left in January for a trip in Northern Mexico. 
He expects to stay a year and to make huge collections of all sorts of 
critters. He has already sent in to us some valuable things from New 
Orleans and Matamoras. 
I lost my dinner to-day in giving Lieut. Trowbridge, U. S. A., 
lessons in birdstuffing. He goes out to the Pacific coast in a week, to 
take charge of certain Coast Survey operations. His duties call him 
along the coast, back and forwards between San Diego and the mouth 
of the Columbia River. He will have several permanent stations 
between these two points, where his men will have abundant oppor- 
tunities. Amply fortified with copper kettles of my patent; alcohol, 
arsenic, tartar emetic, etc., he will collect, and I will get the critters 
of the whole Pacific Coast. 
Capt. Marcy goes out in the summer to Salt Lake City. After 
spending the winter, he crosses to the Colorado, which he will descend 
to its mouth, passing through the unknown region of the Great Cen- 
tral Basin. He goes armed with all appliances. 
Dr. Evans makes a Geological tour through Oregon with nets 
etc., to catch fish and the like. But I must stop this, or you will get 
tired, though I am scarcely half through. Of private expeditions, 
there are hosts, scattered all over the country, and engaged in col- 
lecting grist for my mill. 
As to parties, already out and the results more or less received, we 
have in tow, Ist. the Mexican Boundary Survey, with hundreds of 
new species of vertebrate animals, 2d. Gilliss’s Chilian things; most 
valuable they are and with much more that is nondescript, 3d. Lt. 
Herndon’s specimens from the Amazon. 4th, Capt. Marcy’s col- 
lections made up Red River; 5th, Reptiles of the U. S. Exploring 
Expedition; 6th, Woodhouse’s gatherings while under Capt. Sit- 
greaves on the Zuni and Colorado Rivers, etc. etc. For all these I 
have to prepare or procure reports, and for many have funds where- 
with to get drawings made in highest style. 
All these and more, too, in addition to the regular operations, in 
the same line, of the Institution. Don’t you think there is a fair pros- 
pect of our having a collection soon? But I won’t say any more about 
these things, I only commenced to give you an idea of some of my 
extra-ordinary avocations. 
We are getting along very well in the Smithsonian Institution, 
