Volume I Part 29 (1/2)

”Cedar Island is said to be 1075 miles from the mouth of the Missouri.

On the steep banks of this long, narrow island which lies near the southwest bank, there were thickets of poplars, willows, and buffalo-berry; the rest of the island is covered with a dark forest of red cedars, of which we immediately felled a goodly number. The notes of numerous birds were heard in the gloom of the cedar forest, into which no ray of sun could penetrate. Here, too, we found everywhere traces of the elks and stags, and saw where they had rubbed off the bark with their antlers.” (”Travels in North America,” Maximilian, Prince of Wied, p. 144.)

[294] Translating the usual French name (_pomme blanche_) of the _Psoralea esculenta_.

[295] This is Audubon's first mention of the Western Meadow Lark, which he afterward decided to be a distinct species and named _Sturnella neglecta_, B. of Am. vii., 1844, p. 339, pl. 487. It is interesting to find him noting the difference in the song from that of the Eastern species before he had had an opportunity of examining the bird itself.--E. C.

[296] ”Grand Town” is perhaps the large prairie-dog village which once covered several acres on the right bank of the Missouri, in the vicinity of the b.u.t.te known as the Dome, or Tower, between Yankton and Fort Randall.--E. C.

[297] May 24 is the date given by Audubon, B. Amer. viii., p. 338, as that on which Mr. Bell shot the specimen which became type of _Emberiza Le Conteii_, figured on plate 488. This bird is now _Ammodramus_ (_Coturniculus_) _lecontei_; it long remained an extreme rarity.--E. C.

[298] The common Prairie Hare, _Lepus campestris_, for which see a previous note.--E. C.

[299] La Riviere Blanche of the French, also sometimes called White Earth River, and Mankizitah River; a considerable stream which falls into the right bank of the Missouri in Lyman Co., South Dakota, at the 1056 mile point of the Commission charts.--E. C.

[300] So called from its size, in distinction from the Cedar Island already mentioned on p. 505. This is Second Cedar Island of Warren's and Nicollet's maps, noticed by Lewis and Clark, Sept. 18, 1804, as ”nearly a mile in length and covered with red cedar.” It was once the site of an establishment called Fort Recovery. The position is near the 1070th-mile point of the Missouri.--E. C.

[301] Audubon probably refers to the brief description in his own Synopsis of 1839, p. 103, a copy of which no doubt accompanied him up the Missouri. He had described and figured what he supposed to be _Emberiza pallida_ in the Orn. Biogr. v., 1839, p. 66, pl. 398, fig.

2; B. Amer. iii., 1841, p. 71, pl. 161, from specimens taken in the Rocky Mts. by J. K. Townsend, June 15, 1834. But this bird was not the true _pallida_ of Swainson, being that afterwards called _Spizella breweri_ by Ca.s.sin, Pr. Acad. Philad., 1856, p. 40. The true _pallida_ of Swainson is what Audubon described as _Emberiza shattuckii_, B.

Amer. vii., 1844, p. 347, pl. 493, naming it for Dr. Geo. C. Shattuck, of Boston, one of his Labrador companions. He speaks of it as ”abundant throughout the country bordering the upper Missouri;” and all mention in the present Journal of the ”Clay-colored Bunting,” or ”_Emberiza pallida_,” refers to what Audubon later named Shattuck's Bunting--not to what he gives as _Emberiza pallida_ in the Orn. Biog.

and Synopsis of 1839; for the latter is _Spizella breweri_.--E. C.