Audubon and his Journals, Volume 2 (of 2). John James Audubon

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9

"Fort Clark came in sight, with a background of the blue prairie hills, and with the gay American banner waving from the flag-staff… The fort is built on a smaller scale, on a plan similar to that of all the other trading posts or forts of the company. Immediately behind the fort there were, in the prairie, seventy leather tents of the Crows." (Prince of Wied, p. 171.)

Fort Clark stood on the right bank of the Missouri, and thus across the river from the original Fort Mandan built by Lewis and Clark in the fall of 1804. Maximilian has much to say of it and of Mr. Kipp.

10

This Fox was probably the cross variety of the Long-tailed Prairie Fox, Vulpes macrourus of Baird, Stansbury's Exped. Great Salt Lake, June, 1852, p. 309; Vulpes utah of Aud. and Bach. Quad. N. Am. iii., 1853, p. 255, pl. 151 (originally published by them in Proc. Acad. Philad., July, 1852, p. 114). – E. C.

11

No doubt the Mammillaria vivipara, a small globose species, quite different from the common Opuntia or prickly pear of the Missouri region. – E. C.

12

The individual so designated was an important functionary in these villages, whose authority corresponded with that of our "chief of police," and was seldom if ever disputed. – E. C.

13

"It rises to the west of the Black Mts., across the northern extremity of which it finds a narrow, rapid passage along high perpendicular banks, then seeks the Missouri in a northeasterly direction, through a broken country with highlands bare of timber, and the low grounds particularly supplied with cottonwood, elm, small ash, box, alder, and an undergrowth of willow, red-wood, red-berry, and choke-cherry… It enters the Missouri with a bold current, and is 134 yards wide, but its greatest depth is two feet and a half, which, joined to its rapidity and its sand-bars, makes the navigation difficult except for canoes." ("Lewis and Clark," ed. 1893, pp. 267, 268.)

"We came to a green spot at the mouth of the Little Missouri, which is reckoned to be 1670 miles from the mouth of the great Missouri. The chain of blue hills, with the same singular forms as we had seen before, appeared on the other side of this river." ("Travels in North America," Prince of Wied, p. 182.)

14

At this time the account of the Prince of Wied had not been published in English; that translation appeared December, 1843, two years after the German edition.

15

This is the Little Knife, or Upper Knife River, to be carefully distinguished from that Knife River at the mouth of which were the Minnetaree villages. It falls into the Missouri from the north, in Mountraille Co., 55 miles above the mouth of the Little Missouri. This is probably the stream named Goat-pen Creek by Lewis and Clark: see p. 274 of the edition of 1893. – E. C.

16

Or White Earth River of some maps, a comparatively small stream, eighteen and one half miles above the mouth of Little Knife River. – E. C.

17

Present name of the stream which flows into the Missouri from the north, in Buford Co. This is the last considerable affluent below the mouth of the Yellowstone, and the one which Lewis and Clark called White Earth River, by mistake. See last note. – E. C.

18

Maximilian, Prince of Wied.

19

This is a synonym of Spermophilus tridecem-lineatus, the Thirteen-lined, or Federation Sphermophile, the variety that is found about Fort Union being S. t. pallidus. – E. C.

20

Charles Larpenteur, whose MS. autobiography I possess. – E. C.

21

This is the first intimation we have of the discovery of the Missouri Titlark, which Audubon dedicated to Mr. Sprague under the name of Alauda spragueii, B. of Am. vii., 1844, p. 334, pl. 486. It is now well known as Anthus (Neocorys) spraguei. – E. C.

22

Here is the original indication of the curious Flicker of the Upper Missouri region, which Audubon named Picus ayresii, B. of Am. vii., 1844, p. 348, pl. 494, after W. O. Ayres. It is the Colaptes hybridus of Baird, and the C. aurato-mexicanus of Hartlaub; in which the specific characters of the Golden-winged and Red-shafted Flickers are mixed and obscured in every conceivable degree. We presently find Audubon puzzled by the curious birds, whose peculiarities have never been satisfactorily explained. – E. C.

23

The fact that the Antilocapra americana does shed its horns was not satisfactorily established till several years after 1843. It was first brought to the notice of naturalists by Dr. C. A. Canfield of California, April 10, 1858, and soon afterward became generally known. (See Proc. Zoöl. Soc. Lond. 1865, p. 718, and 1866, p. 105.) Thereupon it became evident that, as Audubon says, these animals are not true Antelopes, and the family Antilocapridæ was established for their reception. On the whole subject see article in Encycl. Amer. i., 1883, pp. 237-242, figs. 1-5. – E. C.

24

That the account given by Audubon is not exaggerated may be seen from the two accounts following; the first from Lewis and Clark, the second from the Prince of Wied: —

"The ancient Maha village had once consisted of 300 cabins, but was burnt about four years ago (1800), soon after the small-pox had destroyed four hundred men, and a proportion of women and children… The accounts we have had of the effects of the small-pox are most distressing; … when these warriors saw their strength wasting before a malady which they could not resist, their frenzy was extreme; they burnt their village, and many of them put to death their wives and children, to save them from so cruel an affliction, and that they might go together to some better country."

"New Orleans, June 6, 1838. We have from the trading posts on the western frontier of Missouri the most frightful accounts of the ravages of small-pox among the Indians… The number of victims within a few months is estimated at 30,000, and the pestilence is still spreading… The small-pox was communicated to the Indians by a person who was on board the steamboat which went last summer to the mouth of the Yellowstone, to convey both the government presents for the Indians, and the goods for the barter trade of the fur-dealers… The officers gave notice of it to the Indians, and exerted themselves to the utmost to prevent any intercourse between them and the vessel; but this was a vain attempt… The disease first broke out about the 15th of June, 1837, in the village of the Mandans, from which it spread in all directions with unexampled fury… Among the remotest tribes of the Assiniboins from fifty to one hundred died daily… The ravages of the disorder were most frightful among the Mandans. That once powerful tribe was exterminated, with the exception of thirty persons. Their neighbors, the Gros Ventres and the Riccarees, were out on a hunting excursion at the time the disorder broke out, so that it did not reach them till a month later; yet half the tribe were destroyed by October 1. Very few of those who were attacked recovered… Many put an end to their lives with knives or muskets, or by precipitating themselves from the summit of the rock near the settlement. The prairie all around is a vast field of death, covered with unburied corpses. The Gros Ventres and the Riccarees, lately amounting to 4,000 souls, were reduced to less than one half. The Assiniboins, 9,000 in number, are nearly exterminated. They, as well as the Crows and Blackfeet, endeavored to fly in all directions; but the disease pursued them… The accounts of the Blackfeet are awful. The inmates of above 1,000 of their tents are already swept away. No language can picture the scene of desolation which the country presents. The above does not complete the terrible intelligence which we receive… According to the most recent accounts, the number of Indians who have been swept away by the small-pox, on the Western frontier of the United States, amounts to more than 60,000."

25

Quiscalus brewerii of Audubon, B. of Am. vii., 1844, p. 345, pl. 492, now known as Scolecophagus cyanocephalus. It was new to our fauna when thus dedicated by Audubon to his friend Dr. Thomas M. Brewer of Boston, but had already been described by Wagler from Mexico as Psarocolius cyanocephalus. It is an abundant bird in the West, where it replaces its near ally, Scolecophagus carolinus. – E. C.

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