473 AUDUBON 



settlement, and I was delighted to see this truly beautiful 

 site for a town or city, as will be no doubt some fifty 

 years hence. The hills themselves are about 200 feet 

 above the river, and slope down gently into the beautiful 

 prairie that extends over some thousands of acres, of the 

 richest land imaginable. Five of our trappers did not 

 come on board at the ringing of the bell, and had to walk 

 several miles across a bend to join us and be taken on 

 again. We have not seen much game this day, probably 

 on account of the high wind. We saw, however, a large 

 flock of Willets, two Gulls, one Grebe, many Blue-winged 

 Teals, Wood Ducks, and Coots, and one pair of mated 

 Wild Geese. This afternoon a Black Squirrel was seen. 

 This morning I saw a Marmot ; and Sprague, a Sciurus 

 macrourus of Say. On examination of the Finch killed by 

 Harris yesterday, I found it to be a new species, and I have 

 taken its measurements across this sheet of paper. ^ It 

 was first seen on the ground, then on low bushes, then on 

 large trees; no note was heard. Two others, that were 

 females to all appearance, could not be procured on ac- 

 count of their extreme shyness. We saw the Indigo-bird, 

 Barn Swallows, Purple Martin, and Greenbacks ;2 also, a 

 Rabbit at the Black Snake Hills. The general aspect of 

 the river is materially altered for the worse; it has be- 

 come much more crooked or tortuous, in some places very 

 wide with sand-banks naked and dried, so that the wind 

 blows the sand quite high. In one place we came to a 

 narrow and swift chute, four miles above the Black Snake 



1 The measurements in pen and ink are marked over the writing of 

 the journal. As already stated, this bird is Fringilla harrisii: Aud. B. of 

 Am. vii., 1844, p. 331, pi. 484. It had previously been discovered by Mr. 

 Thomas Nuttall, who ascended the Missouri with Mr. J. K. Townsend in 

 1834, and named by him F. querula in his Man. Orn. 2d ed. i., 1840, p. 555. 

 Its modern technical name is Zonotrichia querula, though it continues to 

 bear the English designation of Harris's Finch. — E. C. 



2 That is, the Green-backed or White-bellied Swallow, Hirundo bicolor 

 of Vieillot, Tachycineta bicolor of Cabanis, and Iridoprocne bicolor of Coues. 

 — E. C. 



