178 THE CONDOR Vol, XXI 
I was greatly surprised to hear in the pastures round Provo the familiar 
song of the Bobolink, which up to that time I had supposed to be an exelus- 
ively eastern bird. A small colony, however, had established itself in this far 
western outpost, as since it has done elsewhere in the western states. 
I may here note as a curious coincidence that at the time I was collecting 
birds round Provo, E. W. Nelson, then quite unknown to me, was also collect- 
ing birds a few miles to the north, a fact I have just become aware of. He had 
been in Wyoming assisting Prof. E. D. Cope in his search for fossils, and, hav- 
ing parted with that brilliant scientist, had made his way to Salt Lake City, 
near which he was collecting birds on his own initiative. Subsequently, a short 
account of his collections and observations near Salt Lake City, from July 27 to 
_ August 8, 1872, appeared in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural 
History (xvu, 1875). 
METHODS OF FIELD WORK 
Space does not permit giving full 
details of our work in Utah, which in- 
cluded, besides the collecting of birds, 
collecting in several] other branches of 
natural history, as mammals, fish, rep- 
tiles, insects and even plants. Since the 
methods of work practised the first 
season differed a little from those in 
vogue later they may be briefly deserib- 
ed, so as to afford an idea of the cir- 
cumstances and difficulties that beset 
the path of the government collector 
nearly fifty years ago. 
Be it understood, then, that the es- 
sential work of the Wheeler Survey, as 
of its predecessors in the War Depart- 
ment, was geographic, and consisted of 
the making of reconnaissance maps of 
the far west, much of which, even at 
that late date, was uninhabited and still 
very imperfectly known, especially the 
mountain regions. The collection of 
natural history specimens formed a 
_very small part of the work of the sev- 
: : eral field parties, and naturally was — 
Fig. 35. HENRY WET HERBEE Hrensuaw wholly subordinate to the main purpose ~ 
IN 1873. of the Survey. 
PERSONNEL OF THE FIELD PARTIES 
Each of the field parties was in charge of an army officer, usually a re- 
cent graduate of West Point, and consisted of one or more topographers, an as- — 
sistant who had charge of an odometer (which was attached to a large wheel 
drawn by a mule), a geologist, a naturalist (not every party had either), a 
nu nan. but was from five to ten, inch perhaps fifty individuals, anc 
their fields of operation often were widely separated. 
