AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



27 



We drove the next day to Coyote, where we finished preparing our 

 specimens and boxed and shipped them. They included eight skins and 

 three heads of buffalo, and skins and skeletons of two lynxes, several coyotes, 

 wolves and jack-rabbits, and a few birds. We settled with Clarkson for $50, 

 which sum covered our transportation and board for a week, and his promise 

 to get for us three more skins of buffalo — two cows and a yearling bull, 

 which were still lacking to complete our series. 



We left Fort Hays for the East at 3 p. m. on January 12, and reached 

 Cambridge on the 22d, stopping by the way at my old home in Springfield 

 for a couple of days to visit the home folks, well satisfied with the results of 

 our nine months' work in the field. We had collected and sent to Cam- 

 bridge 200 skins, 60 skeletons and 240 additional skulls of mammals (mostly 

 large species) ; 1500 bird skins, over 100 birds in alcohol, and a large num- 

 ber of nests and eggs ; a considerable number of fishes, both fossil and re- 

 cent, and a few mollusks, and many insects and crustaceans. 



The following year I remained at the Cambridge Museum, cataloguing 

 and labeling the rapidly increasing collections of birds and mammals. 



Yellowstone Expedition (1873). 



In May, 1873, Professor Baird, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, saw an opportunity to advance our knowledge of the natural 

 history of a then little known portion of the West through utilizing oppor- 

 tunities afforded by the large military expedition the War Department was 

 to provide as an escort for the railroad surveyors who were to locate the 

 Northern Pacific Railroad westward from Bismark. A number of promi- 

 nent specialists were invited to cooperate in the natural history work, some 

 of whom accepted but later found it impracticable to join the expedition. 

 I was invited to take charge of the work in vertebrate zoology, and the 

 authorities of the Museum of Comparative Zoology kindly granted me 

 leave of absence to accompany the expedition, the Museum to have a share 

 of the duplicates obtained. The large scientific staff contemplated at the 

 outset dwindled to a few persons, mostly with little or no experience in 

 scientific field work, so that I was installed as chief of the party. I secured 

 the services of Mr. C. W. Bennett, who accompanied me on my 1871 expedi- 

 tion, as my personal assistant. The other members of the party were a 

 geologist, a photographer, and an artist, the latter being Mr. Konopicky 

 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. The photographer's wagon un- 

 fortunately did not arrive until the expedition had reached the Yellowstone, 

 and he was accordingly greatly handicapped in his work. 



