Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Nor did the official duties of my position interfere with the investigation of the natural history of the country.

A large box of stuffed birds and quadrupeds, containing twenty-three specimens of various species, was sent to the Lyceum of Natural History at New York, in the month of April. Mr. William Cooper writes, under this date, that they have been received and examined. "The lynx appears to be the northern species, different from that common in this part of the country, and very rarely seen here even in the public collections. Several of the birds, also, I had never had an opportunity of examining before. The spruce partridge, Tetrae Canadensis, is very rare in the United States. There is no other species in this city besides yours. It was entirely unknown to Wilson; but it is to appear in the third vol. of Bonaparte's continuation of Wilson, to be published in the ensuing autumn. The circumstance of its being found in the Michigan Territory, is interesting on account of the few localities in which this bird has been found in our boundaries. The three-toed woodpecker, Picus tridactylus, was equally unknown to Wilson, and the second volume of Bonaparte, now about to be issued, contains an elegant figure and history of this bird, which also inhabits the north of Europe and Asia. The other birds and quadrupeds of your collection, though better known, were very interesting, as affording materials for the history of their geographical distribution, a subject now become exceedingly interesting. The plover of the plain is the turnstone, strepsilus interpres.

"The large fish is one of the genus Amia, and Dr. Dekay is inclined to think it different from the A. caloa found in our southern rivers, but of much smaller size. The tortoises belong to three species, viz., T. scabra, T. pieta, and T. serpentina. It is the first information I have obtained of their inhabiting so far to the north-west. There are also others found in your vicinity, which, if it would not be asking too much, I should be much pleased if you could obtain for the Lyceum."

"I hope you will excuse me, if I take the liberty to recommend to you, to direct your observation more particularly to those birds which come to you in winter, from the north, or in any direction from beyond the United States territory. It is among these that you may expect to find specimens new to our ornithology.

"The beautiful Fringilla, which you sent to us a few years since, is figured and described from your specimen, and in an elegant manner, in the volume just about to be published of Bonaparte's work."

Mr. G. Johnston of La Pointe, Lake Superior, writes: "Since I had the honor of receiving a printed letter from the Lyceum of Natural History, I have been enabled to procure, at this place, two specimens of the jumping mouse.

"The history the Indians give of its habits is as follows: It burrows under ground, and in summer lives on the bark of small trees. It provides and lays up a store of corn, nuts, &c., for winter consumption. It also climbs and lives in hollow parts of trees. It is also possessed of a carnivorous habit, it being peculiarly fond of burrowing in old burying places, where it lives, principally on the corpse. It is never seen in winter."

There is something in the northern zoology besides the determination of species, which denotes a very minute care in preparing animals for the particular latitudes the several species are designed for, by protecting the legs and feet against the power of intense cold. And the dispersion and migration of birds and quadrupeds are thus confined to general boundaries. The fox, in high northern latitudes, is perfectly white except the nose and tips of the ears, which are black, and the hair extends so as to cover its nails. The various kinds of owls, and the Canada jay, which winter in these latitudes, have a feathery, half-hairy protection to the toes. The American species of the reindeer, which under the name of cariboo, inhabits the country around the foot of Lake Superior, has its hoof split in such a manner that it, in fact, serves as a kind of snow shoe, spreading quite thin over about forty superficial inches, which enables it to walk on the crusted snow.

29th. Dr. William Augustus Ficklin, of Louisiana (Jackson), recalls my attention to the U.S. Exploring Expedition, the programme of which embraces my name. "You will want a physician and surgeon attached to the expedition. Is the place yet filled?" My acquaintance with this young gentleman, then a lad at his father's house, in Missouri, recalls many pleasing recollections, which gives me every inducement to favor his wishes.

August 2d. Mr. Robert Irwin, Junr., of Green Bay, writes that a most diabolical attempt was recently made at that place, a few days ago, to take the life of Maj. Twiggs, by a corporal belonging to his command. The circumstances were briefly these: About two o'clock in the afternoon, the major had retired to his room to repose himself. Soon after the corporal entered the room so secretly that he presented a loaded musket within a few inches of his head, and, as Providence would have it, the gun missed fire. The noise awoke the major, who involuntarily seized the muzzle, and, while looking the fellow full in the face, he cocked the gun and again snapped it; but it missed fire the second time. With that the major sprang up in bed and wrenched the gun out of the assassin's hands, and with the breech knocked the fellow down, fracturing his skull so much that his life was for many days despaired of.