href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@46280@[email protected]#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">17

There is also another species18 inhabiting about the mountains, where it was first observed by those distinguished travellers, Lewis and Clarke, on their expedition to the Pacific Ocean. It is allied to the Sc. striatus, and belongs to the same subgenus (tamias illig.) but it is of a somewhat larger stature, entirely destitute of the vertebral line, and is further distinguished by the lateral lines commencing before the humerus, where they are broadest by the longer nails of the anterior feet, and by the armature of the thumb tubercle. It certainly cannot with propriety be regarded as a variety of the striatus, and we are not aware that the latter species is subject to vary to any remarkable degree in this country. But the species to which, in the distribution of its colours, it is most closely allied, is unquestionably the Sc. bilineatus of Geoffroy.19 A specimen is preserved in the Philadelphia Museum.

The cliff swallow20 is here very frequent, as well as in all the rocky country near the mountains. This species attaches its nest in great numbers to the rocks in dry situations, under projecting ledges. The nest is composed of mud, and is hemispherical, with the entrance near the top somewhat resembling a chymist's retort, flattened on one side, and with the neck broken off for the entrance. This entrance, which is perfectly rounded sometimes, projects a little and turns downward. It is an active bird, flying about the vicinity of the nest in every direction, [236] like the barn swallow. In many of the nests we found young hatched, and in others only eggs.

A fine species of serpent21 was brought into camp by one of the men. It is new, and seems to be peculiar to this region.

A very beautiful species of emberiza22 was caught; it is rather smaller than the indigo bunting, (emberiza cyanea) with a note entirely dissimilar. It was observed to be much in the grass, rarely alighting on bushes or trees.

We also captured a rattle-snake,23 which, like the tergeminus, we have found to inhabit a barren soil, and to frequent the villages of the arctomys of the prairie; but its range appeared to us confined chiefly to the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains. Its rattle is proportionally much larger than that of the species just mentioned, and the head is destitute of large plates. It seems, by the number of plates and scales, to be allied to the atracaudatus of Bosc and Daud, but their description induces the conclusion that their species is entirely white beneath.24 It is also allied to the crotalus durissus, L. (C. rhombifer, Beaur.), but it is smaller, and the dorsal spots are more rounded. A specimen is placed in the Philadelphia Museum.

The only specimens of organic reliquiæ from this vicinity, which we have been so fortunate as to preserve, are very indistinct in their characters, and are only impressions in the gray sandstone. One of them appears to have been a phytoid millepore, and the other a sub-equilateral bivalve, which may possibly have been a mactra. It is suborbicular, and its surface is marked by concentric grooves or undulations. At a previous encampment numerous fragments of shells, of a dusky colour, occurred in the same variety of sandstone, and amongst these is an entire valve of a small species of ostrea, of a shape very like that of a pinna, and less than half an inch in length. We have a specimen, from another [237] locality, of a very dark coloured compact, and very fœtid impure limestone, containing still more blackish fragments of bivalves, one of which presents the form of a much arcuated mytillus? but as the back of the valve only is offered to examination, it may be a chama, but it seems to be perfectly destitute of sculpture.

Another specimen from the mountains near the Platte river, is a reddish brick-coloured petrosiliceous mass, containing casts and impressions of a grooved terebratula.

Hunters were kept out during the day on the 17th, but killed nothing. At evening they were sent out on horseback, but did not return till 3 P. M. on the following day. They had descended the river twelve miles, finding little game. They had killed one deer, one old turkey with her young brood of six. This supply proved highly acceptable as we had for some time been confined almost entirely to our small daily allowance of corn meal. At the commencement of our tour we had taken a small supply of sea-biscuit. At first these were distributed one to each man three times per day, afterwards two, then one for two, and then one for three days, till our stock of bread was so nearly exhausted, that it was thought proper to reserve the little that remained for the use of the sick, should any unfortunately require it. We then began upon our parched maize, which proved an excellent substitute for bread. This was issued at first at the rate of one pint per day for four men, no distinction being made in this or any other case between the officers and gentlemen of the party, and the citizens and soldiers attached to it. When we arrived at the Arkansa, about one-third part of our supply of this article was exhausted, and no augmentation of the daily issues could be allowed, although our supplies of meat had been for some time inadequate to the consumption of the party.

[238] We had a little coffee, tea, and sugar, but these were reserved as hospital stores; our three gallons of salt were expended. We now depended entirely upon hunting for our subsistence, as we had done for meat ever since we left the Pawnee villages, our pork having been entirely consumed before we arrived at that place. We, however, apprehended little want of meat after we should have left the mountains, as we believed there would be plenty of bisons and other game upon the plains over which we were to travel.

At 2 o'clock P. M. on the eighteenth, rain began to fall which continued during the remainder of the day, and made it impossible for us to complete the observations we had begun.

The Arkansa, from the mountains to the place of our encampment, has an average breadth of about sixty yards, it is from three to five feet deep, and the current rapid. At the mountains, the water was transparent and pure, but soon after entering the plains it becomes turbid and brackish.