1850 TO 1865 377 
The Smithsonian is as desirous as ever of getting more material 
from the North in all departments of natural history. 
Prof. Baird has to most of you discussed the natural history 
question pretty extensively, though probably he has talked birds and 
eggs chiefly. 
But as I’m full to overflowing with Arctic zoological ideas I must 
write you on this head as well. 
I will defer writing about summer collecting till next packet, 
though I enclose some memoranda about summer birds, eggs, etc. 
Probably the greatest field for discoveries in North American 
zoology is in the fishes. Except the very few that I sent out from 
Slave Lake and Fort Simpson and the few that you gentlemen of 
the River District have collected we know nothing of Arctic Ichthy- 
ology beyond what Richardson tells us. All of my Yukon and lower 
Mackenzie alcoholic collections were lost at The Portage. Clarke 
found them last summer and sent them on but they have never ap- 
peared and I fear are now gone forever. 
There is an immense field open for discovery to you, and I would 
by all means advise you to cultivate it diligently. 
Hurrah for the Chicago Museum and you working in it! ! 
Yours always, 
KeEnnicott. 
On the 19th of March Kennicott and his party arrived 
in New York on their way to Russian America (now 
Alaska) via the Nicaragua route to California. His com- 
panions were J.T. Rothrock, W. H. Dall, H. M. Bannister, 
G. W. Maynard, Charles Pease, H. W. Elliott, and 
Ferdinand Bischoff, a German taxidermist. In the course 
of events the party was scattered, some going to British 
Columbia, Kennicott, Bannister, Pease and Dall to the 
Yukon; while Bischoff, being ill, was left at Sitka. The 
33 Some years later Bischoff, while on a collecting tour in New 
Mexico, wandered off into the desert and was never heard of again. 
