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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 166. 



aginable, huge masses hanging on minor 

 ones as if about to roll themselves down 

 from their doubtful-looking situations, into 

 the depths of the sea beneath. Bays with- 

 out end, sprinkled with rocky islands of all 

 shapes and sizes, where in every fissure a 

 Guillemot, a Cormorant, or some other wild 

 bird retreat to secure its eggs and raise its 

 young, or save itself from the hunter's pur- 

 suit. The peculiar cast of the sky, which 

 never seems to be certain, butterflies flit- 

 ting over snow-banks, probing beautiful 

 dwarf flowerets of many hues pushing their 

 tender stems from the thick bed of moss 

 which everywhere covers the granite rocks. 

 Then the morasses, wherein you plunge up 

 to your kuees, or the walking over the 

 stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery, making one 

 think that as he goes he. treads down the 

 forests of Labrador." 



Those who have felt the fury and gran- 

 deur of a Labrador storm will appreciate 

 Audubon's description of one he witnessed 

 July 10, 1833, when the blasts 'seemed 

 strong enough to rend the very rocks 

 asunder.' He says : 



" The rain is driven in sheets which 

 seem scarcely to fall on sea or land ; I can 

 hardly call it rain, it is rather a mass of 

 water, so thick that all objects at any dis- 

 tance from us are lost to sight every three 

 or four minutes, and the waters comb up 

 and beat about us in our rock-bound harbor 

 as a newly caged bird does against its im- 

 prisoning walls. The great Black-backed 

 Gull alone is seen floating through the 

 storm, screaming loudly and mournfully as 

 it seeks its prey ; not another bird is to be 

 seen abroad ; the Cormorants are all set- 

 tled in the rocks close to us, the Guillemots 

 are deep in the fissures, every Eider Duck 

 lays under the lee of some point, her brood 

 snugly beneath her opened wings, the Loon 

 and Diver have crawled among the rankest 

 weeds * * * and the gale continues as 

 if it would never stop." 



Ten years after the Labrador trip Audu- 

 bon made his famous expedition to the 

 junction of the Missouri and Yellowstone 

 Rivers. The journals of this expedition, 

 which was undertaken solely for the sake 

 of his work on the Quadrupeds of North 

 America, are storehouses of information. 

 He set out from New York for St. Louis, 

 March 11, 1843, and took with him Edward 

 Harris, John G. Bell, Isaac Sprague and 

 Lewis Squires. The party left St. Louis 

 by river steamboat on the 25th of April, but 

 owing to contrary winds, innumerable sand- 

 bars, and the delays incident to cutting fire- 

 wood for the engine along the way, it was 

 the 12th of June before they reached Fort 

 Union. 



In those days Parakeets were common 

 along the Missouri, and were seen, the jour- 

 nal states, near St. Joseph, Missouri ; at 

 Fort Leavenworth, Kansas ; near the mouth 

 of the Platte Eiver, Nebraska ; near Coun- 

 cil Bluffs, Iowa, and at several points near 

 Great Bend, South Dakota. Big game 

 abounded everywhere. An important rec- 

 ord is that of the Black- tail or Mule Deer 

 at the mouth of Little Sioux Eiver, Harri- 

 son County, Iowa, where four were seen 

 May 12, 1843. This species was long before 

 exterminated in this region and is not in- 

 cluded in Allen's list of the mammals of 

 Iowa, published in 1869. Two weeks later 

 one was shot and others seen at Great 

 Bend, South Dakota. 



Elk or Wapiti were noted at various 

 places in Nebraska and Dakota from op- 

 posite the mouth of the Little Sioux River 

 northward ; Antelope were said to occur 

 within 25 miles of Fort Vermilion, South 

 Dakota, and the first Buffaloes were ob- 

 served near the mouth of the James River 

 in the same State. A little higher up the 

 latter animals were seen constantly and 

 often in enormous numbers. 



Before reaching Fort Pierre the party 

 met a curious boat which " instead of being 



