8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



down which in 1810 Alexander Wilson had guided his little 

 row-boat the ''Ornithologist" on his trip to New Orleans. 

 They left Pittsburgh on May 5, 1819, reaching St. Louis June 

 9 and Council Bluffs (near the present city of Omaha) in the 

 early autumn, and here passed the winter. The summer of 

 1820 was spent in exploring the eastern base of the central 

 Rocky Mountains, returning to the mouth of the Ohio by No- 

 vember. The Rocky Mountain party consisted of twenty per- 

 sons with twenty riding animals and eight pack-horses, each 

 man carrying his personal belongings. Peale was one of a side 

 party under Dr. James which made the first ascent of Pike's 

 Peak; Pike after whom it was named having merely viewed it 

 from a distance. To Peale would seem to belong all the credit 

 for the discovery of the many new birds, which date from this 

 expedition, since we have Bonaparte's word that he procured 

 them and drew them on the spot.^ 



Say in a letter to Melsheimer under date of August 29, 1821 

 speaks of the task of describing the new birds and quadrupeds 

 having been added to his duties in connection with the prepara- 

 tion of the report of the expedition. One would infer that he 

 had expected Peale or some one else to attend to this work as 

 his interests were mainly with the invertebrates. Possibly this 

 fact may account for the meager treatment of the vertebrates in 

 Long's report, or possibly Say was aware that Bonaparte in his 

 forthcoming continuation of Wilson's Ornithology proposed to 

 publish full accounts of all the birds, as well as colored plates of 

 them, engraved from Peale' s sketches. Bonaparte's work ap- 

 peared in 1825 and he does full honor to Peale' s labors on the 

 Long expedition at the same time praising him as a " painter- 

 naturalist. ' ' 



The first ornithological novelty of the expedition was appar- 

 ently the Lark Sparrow procured near the mouth of the Missouri 

 while at the camp near Omaha were secured the first specimens 

 of the Orange-crowned Warbler and Yellow-headed Blackbird. 

 In Douglas County, Colorado, not far from the present site of 

 Denver were discovered the Band-tailed Pigeon and Rock Wren 



^ Bonaparte's Amer. Ornith., preface to vol. i. 



