This bird in many respects resembles cinclus, but as the average size of that bird is stated at seven inches and one or two lines, ours is doubtless a distinct species. Many flocks of them were seen at Engineer Cantonment, both in the spring and autumn, the individuals of which corresponded in point of magnitude: we add a description for the information of ornithologists. It is described from a specimen in the autumnal plumage. In the spring dress, the colour of the superior part of the bird is much paler, almost destitute of black, and the feathers are brownish, margined with pale cinereous; the superior part of the head is always darker than any part of the neck, and margined with ferruginous; the plumage of the neck beneath, and the breast, does not appear to be subject to so much change, as that of the superior part of the body.
2. Pelidna cinclus. Var.—Above blackish-brown, plumage edged with cinereous, or whitish; head and neck above cinereous with dilated fuscous lines; eyebrows white; a brown line between the eye and corner of the mouth, above which the front is white; cheeks, sides of the neck, and throat, cinereous, lineate with blackish-brown; bill short, straight, black; chin, breast, belly, vent, and inferior tail coverts pure white, plumage plumbeous at base; scapulars and lesser wing coverts margined with white; greater wing coverts with a broad white tip; primaries surpassing the tip of the tail, blackish, slightly edged with whitish, exterior shaft white, shafts whitish on the middle of their length; rump blackish, plumage margined at tip with cinereous tinctured with rufous; tail coverts white, submargins black; tail feathers cinereous margined with white, two middle ones slightly longer, black, margined with white; legs blackish. A male.
| Length to tip of tail | 7 inches. |
| Bill | 7⁄8 of an inch. |
This bird was shot in November, near Engineer Cantonment, and it is probably a variety of the very variable cinclus in its winter plumage.—James.
[191] A sketch of Big Elk is given in Bradbury's Travels, volume v of our series, note 52.—Ed.
[192] Some reminiscences of White Cow (or White Buffalo), will be found in Nebraska Historical Society Transactions, i, p. 79 et seq.—Ed.
[193] Joshua Pilcher was a Virginian who came to St. Louis when a young man, during the War of 1812-15, and there plied his trade of hatter. He became a director of the bank of St. Louis, and entered the Missouri Fur Company upon its organization, succeeding Manuel Lisa as president upon the latter's death. Upon the dissolution of this company, he was for a time at Council Bluffs in charge of the American Fur Company's interests. He succeeded William Clark as superintendent of Indian affairs (1838), holding the position until his death, in 1847.—Ed.
[194] Coluber flaviventris.—Olivaceous, beneath yellow; inferior jaw beneath white; scales destitute of carina.
Description. Body above, olivaceous; tinged with brown on the vertebræ; scales impunctured at tip, posterior edges and basal edge black; skin black, beneath yellow, rather paler behind; inferior jaw beneath white to the origin of the plates; head with nine plates above, two longitudinal series, of about four large scales each, intervening on each side between the two posterior plates and the three posterior supermaxillary plates; intermaxillary plate somewhat heptagonal, dilated, emarginate at the mouth, superior angle obtusely pointed; eye black-brown, pupil deep black, surrounded by a whitish line, posterior canthus with two plates.
Plates 176, scales 84