Capt. Chas. E. Bendire, U. S. A.
Under date of Dec. 29th we have a long letter from the Captain detailing many of the duties at his new post, which seems so far to quite fully occupy his time; so much so that what spare time he does get is entirely taken up collecting and making specimens, so that instead of writing notes for our readers, he is making them to be used in the future. We will make a few extracts from his letter such as will interest our readers generally: “However with all the drawbacks I am making some headway in my collection, and am getting some good things. I have now catalogued 375 skins since my arrival here, and 300 of these I have made since Sept 1st, besides a great many alcoholic specimens not counted in the above. We are having a mild Winter, the snow is only about a foot deep, when in other seasons it has been three feet deep at this time. Birds are scarce—about twenty species comprise the more common Winter residents. The water birds are too far off for me to trouble them much—the nearest point on the lake is ten miles. I had hoped to find some rare Winter birds and plenty of them as at Camp Harney in ’75 and ’76, but there are very few, and even Owls and Hawks are not near as plenty about the post here as at Walla Walla. I presume the marshes near the lake are full of them, but they are almost impassible. When the lake and marsh freeze over I expect a lot of birds will be driven up toward the post, and by that time very likely there will be so much snow that I cannot get the birds.”
It has been whispered among a few that Captain Bendire was to take up American Oology where the late Dr. Brewer left it, and it is to be earnestly hoped that this will be brought about at no distant day, for the department can well afford to do it as a very large edition would find a ready sale if it was found necessary to sell it, as the department now does the first volume, besides being one of the very few capable of undertaking this work. There was a warm friendship between him and the late Dr. Brewer that the death of the latter has not in the least diminished in the other. For the above reasons Captain Bendire is the one above all others to finish the work so well begun by his friend the late lamented Dr. Brewer.