Clark: March 2, 1806

Sunday March 2nd 1806. The diet of the sick is so inferior that they recover their strength only slowly. None of them are now sick, but all in a state of convalescence with keen appetites and nothing to eat except lean elk meat.

The natives of this neighborhood eat the root of the cattail, or cooper's flag. It is pleasantly tasted and appears to be very nutritious. The inner part of the root, which is eaten without any previous preparation, is composed of a number of capillary white flexible strong fibers, among which is a mealy or starch-like substance which readily dissolves in the mouth and separates from the fibers, which are then rejected. It appears to me that this substance would make excellent starch; nothing can be of a purer white than it is.

This evening late, Drewyer, Crusat (Cruzatte) and Wiser returned with a most acceptable supply of fat sturgeon, fresh anchovies, and a bag containing about a bushel of wappato. We feasted on the anchovies and wappato.

The heath cock, or cock of the plains, is found in the plains of Columbia and is in great abundance from the entrance of Lewis's River to the mountains which the Columbia passes through between the Great Falls and the Rapids of that river. This fowl is about three-fourths the size of a turkey. The beak is large, short, curved, and convex, with the upper exceeding the lower chap. The nostrils are large and the back black. The color is a uniform mixture of dark brown rather bordering on a dove color, reddish and yellowish brown, with some small black specks. In this mixture the dark brown prevails and has a slight cast of the dove color at a little distance. The wider sides of the larger feathers of the wings are of a dark brown only. The tail is composed of 19 feathers, of which the one in the center is the longest, and the remaining 9 on each side diminish by pairs as they recede from the center; that is, any one feather is equal in length to one at an equal distance from the center of the tail on the opposite side. The tail, when folded, comes to a very sharp point and appears long in proportion to the body. In the act of flying, the tail resembles that of a wild pigeon, though the motion of the wings is much that of the pheasant and grouse. They have four toes on each foot, of which the hinder one is short. The leg is covered with feathers about half the distance between the knee and foot. When the wing is expanded there are wide openings between its feathers, the plumage being so narrow that it does not extend from one quill to another. The wings are also proportionately short, rather more so than those of the pheasant or grouse. The habits of this bird are much the same as those of the prairie hen or grouse, only that the food of this fowl is almost entirely the leaf and buds of the pulpy-leafed thorn, nor do I ever recollect seeing this bird but in the neighborhood of that shrub. The gizzard of it is large and much less compressed and muscular than in most fowls; in short, it resembles a maw quite as much as a gizzard. When they fly they make a cackling noise something like the dunghill fowl. The flesh of this fowl is dark and only tolerable in point of flavor. I do not think it as good as that of the pheasant or prairie hen, or grouse. The feathers above its head are pointed and stiff, with some hairs about the base of the beak. Feathers are short, fine, and stiff about the ears and eye. This is a faint likeness of the cock of the plains or heath cock. The first of these fowls which we met with was on the Missouri below and in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, and from there to the mountains which the Columbia passes between the Great Falls and Rapids. They go in large gangs or singly, and hide remarkably close when pursued, make short flights, etc.

The large black and white pheasant is peculiar to that portion of the Rocky Mountains watered by the Columbia River. At least we did not see them until we reached the waters of that river, nor since we have left those mountains. They are about the size of a well-grown hen. The contour of the bird is much that of the reddish brown pheasant common to our country. The tail is proportionately as long and is composed of 18 feathers of equal length, of a uniform dark brown tipped with black. The feathers of the body are of a dark brown, black, and white. The black is what most predominates, and white feathers are irregularly intermixed with those of the black and dark brown on every part, but in greater proportion about the neck, breast, and belly. This mixture gives it very much the appearance of that kind of dunghill fowl which the henwives of our country call dominicker. In the breast of some of these birds the white predominates most. They are not furnished with tufts of long feathers on the neck as other pheasants are, but have a space on each side of the neck about 2 1/2 inches long and one inch in width on which no feathers grow, though it is concealed by the feathers which are inserted on the hinder and front part of the neck. This space seems to serve them to dilate or contract the feathers of the neck with more ease. The eye is dark, the beak black, uncovered, somewhat pointed, and the upper exceeds the under chap. They have a narrow strip of vermillion color above each eye, which consists of a fleshy substance, not protuberant but uneven, with a number of minute rounded dots. It has four toes on each foot, of which three are in front; it is booted to the toes. It feeds on wild fruits, particularly the berry of the sacacommis, and much also on the seed of the pine and fir. This fowl is usually found in small numbers, two and three and four together on the ground. When surprised, it flies up and lights on a tree, and is easily shot. Their flesh is superior to most of the pheasant species which we have met with. They have a gizzard as other pheasants, etc. They feed also on the buds of the small huckleberry bushes.