These names bring to mind several notable ornithologists and botanists whose published journals and narratives are at once fruitful sources of information to the working student and delightful reading to any person. Of all the young scientists who passed this way in their eagerness to explore the unknown beyond and gather its treasures to science, perhaps none are of more interest, though others may be more widely known, than John K. Townsend and Thomas Nuttall. Nuttall’s discovery here of the bird now known as Harris’s Sparrow (Zonotrichia querula), together with the fact that two other eminent ornithological explorers, at later periods, each believed he had discovered the bird in this same region, renders the tradition of peculiar and obvious local interest.
A long entertained hope of being able to determine the actual locality in Jackson County, Missouri, where Nuttall took the original specimen of this Sparrow, has led the writer to bring together the widely scattered data bearing on the early history of the bird. The facts in question, which do not appear to have been previously assembled, present several interesting features.
Nuttall and Townsend had outfitted in St. Louis in late March, 1834, preparatory to a leisurely [pedestrian journey] of some three hundred miles across the state to Independence, where they were to join the large caravan under Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, bound for the Columbia River country. On April 28th the party left Independence over the frontier trail to Westport, distant approximately fourteen miles. Some time during the day Nuttall, who was primarily a botanist and is said to have carried no gun, took, or had taken for him by some member of the party, the type specimen of Harris’s Sparrow which he named the Mourning Finch (Fringilla querula). Nuttall writes: “We observed this species, which we at first took for the preceding [White-crowned Sparrow], a few miles to the west of Independence, in Missouri, towards the close of April. It frequents thickets, uttering in the morning, and occasionally at other times, a long, drawling, monotonous and solemn note te de de de. We heard it again on the 5th of May, not far from the banks of the Little Vermilion, of the Kansa.”[3]
The information contained in this short paragraph is the only guide the writer has had in a search for the spot where the species was first met with. Not a little difficulty has been experienced in tracing the road between Independence and Westport in use in the early thirties, since but meager graphic record of its course has been preserved. The accompanying sketch map is in the main authentic, authorities differing as to only a short stretch about three miles from old Westport. Many years association with the birds of this region leads the writer to the conclusion that these scientists would have had difficulty in crossing the Blue Valley at this season of the year without seeing or hearing troops of these striking Sparrows. That part of the road lying within the valley is indicated on the map by arrows.
Townsend’s frame of mind on this momentous day is best described in his own words. “On the 28th of April, at 10 o’clock in the morning, our caravan, consisting of seventy men, and two hundred and fifty horses, began its march; Captain Wyeth and Milton Sublette took the lead, Mr. N.[uttall] and myself rode beside them; then the men in double file, each leading, with a line, two horses heavily laden, and Captain Thing [Captain W.’s assistant] brought up the rear. The band of missionaries, with their horned cattle, rode along the flanks.
“I frequently sallied out from my station to look at and admire the appearance of the cavalcade, and as we rode out from the encampment, our horses prancing, and neighing, and pawing the ground, it was altogether so exciting that I could scarcely contain myself. Every man in the company seemed to feel a portion of the same kind of enthusiasm; uproarious bursts of merriment, and gay and lively songs, were constantly echoing along the line. We were certainly a most merry and happy company. What cared we for the future? We had reason to expect ere long difficulties and dangers, in various shapes, would assail us, but no anticipation of reverses could check the happy exuberance of our spirits.
“Our road lay over a vast rolling prairie, with occasional small spots of timber at the distance of several miles apart, and this will no doubt be the complexion of the track for some weeks.
“In the afternoon we crossed the Big Blue River at a shallow ford. Here we saw a number of the beautiful Yellow-headed Troopials, (Icterus zanthrocephalus) feeding upon the prairie in company with large flocks of Blackbirds, and like these, they often alight upon the backs of our horses.”[4]