1850 TO 1865 333 
down and should not be greatly surprised if our snake box were 
thrown away as useless and not worth the transportation under the 
circumstances. 
I never believed half that was said about the great number of 
buffalo and the few met as (we) went west confirmed my conviction. 
As we returned, for fifteen days there was not one we did not see 
thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands of Buffalo. The meat 
of the old bulls is scarcely eatable. A fat cow or calf does tolerably 
well, but there are a great many things to eat in this world that I 
like better. I got completely surfeited—disgusted in fact with 
buffalo. I ate buffalo, I drank buffalo, I smelt buffalo, there was 
nothing but buffalo in sight. They eat up all the grass, they saturate 
all the water, and perfume the very air. . . . I was very anxious 
to see the buffalo and am satisfied. 
Yours, &c., 
Joun H. Crark. 
In 1854 a young man came to Washington to study 
at the Smithsonian with whom Baird had been in corre- 
spondence for several years. This was Robert Kennicott, 
of Illinois, who was destined to add, by his travels and 
collections, directly and indirectly perhaps more than any 
other collaborator, to the riches of the Smithsonian Collec- 
tion. He became, as previously mentioned, intimate in 
the Baird family, and by his contagious enthusiasm 
inspired all who came in contact with him to at least 
attempt to do something in the way of collecting or 
research. He had spent part of the summer on a collecting 
trip which took him as far as Pembina on the Red River 
of the North, then controlled by the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany, now in Canadian territory. 
He arrived in Washington about the middle of Decem- 
ber and remained until the latter part of April, 1858.% 
24 See Chicago Academy of Sciences, Transactions, Vol. 1, pt. 2, 
1869, p. 139, et seq. 
