Audubon and His Journals, Volume 2

by John James Audubon

"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.