106 NARRATIVE, &c. 



so much further south, than it had been supposed, and so con- 

 siderably removed from any practicable route into Red river 

 that I found it would be a consumption of time altogether dis- 

 proportionate to the anticipated results ; and it was, therefore, 

 given up. 



On going out of Lac Pie, the channel exhibits numerous fresh 

 water shells driven up against the shore, or lodged against ine- 

 qualities in the bottom.* And these productions are afterwards 

 seen in all the subsequent outlets which connect the numerou s 

 lakes of this river. But little variety was, however, noticed 

 among the species, although greater attention than we could be- 

 stow, might elicit new characteristics. Generally, they were 

 small, or middle sized, often decorticated and broken. Soon 

 after entering this channel, one of my men fired at, and 

 brought down, a fork-tailed hawk, a species which had before 

 been noticed on the wing, but we had now an opportunity of 

 closer scrutiny. We did not observe any characteristics in 

 which it differed from the described species. And if we ex- 

 cept the numerous species of duck, the colamba migratons, cat- 

 bird, and some other land species almost equally common, this 

 constitutes the substance of our observations, on the birds of 

 this river. We saw the deer, of which there are apparently 

 two species. And we had frequent occasion to observe the 

 antlers and bones of these animals around deserted camps, 

 evincing their abundance in this part of the country. 



We had been three fourths of an hour in descending this out- 

 let, when we entered a lake called Boutwell, with banks of ra- 

 ther sombre vegetation, which we were nineteen minutes in pas- 

 sing. Its outlet, of a spreading, sandy, shelly character, is 

 about a mile and a half in extent, at which distance it expands 

 into Lac Vieux Desert, or the Lake of the Old Wintering 

 Ground, where we halted long enough to prepare breakfast. 

 This lake we were twenty-six minutes in passing through. Its 



