Lewis: March 8, 1806

Saturday March 8th 1806. Bratton is much better today; his back gives him but little pain. Collins returned early in the morning and informed us that he had killed three elk about five miles distant on the edge of the prairie in Point Adams. One of them fell in a deep pond of water and he could not get it; the other two he butchered and secured. He saw two large herds of elk in that quarter. We sent Drewyer (Drouillard) and Joseph Fields to hunt those elk. A party was also sent with Labuish (Labiche) for the flesh of the elk which Drewyer and himself had killed up the Netul; they returned with it in the evening. Shields, R. Fields, and Frazier returned this evening from the Kilhawanackkle unsuccessful, having seen no elk. McNeal and Goodrich having recovered from the lues venerea (venereal disease), I directed them to stop using mercury.

The white brant is very common in this country, particularly below tidewater, where they remain in vast quantities during the winter. They feed like the swan, geese, etc., on the grass, roots, and seeds which they find in the marshes. This bird is about the size of the brown brant, or a third less than the common Canadian or wild goose. The head is proportionably rather large compared to the goose; the beak also is thicker and shorter and of much the same form, being of a yellowish white color except the edges of the chaps, which are frequently of a dark brown. The legs and feet are of the same form as the goose's and are of a reddish white or pale flesh color. The tail is composed of sixteen feathers of equal length, as those of the geese and brown brant are, and bears about the same proportion in point of length. The eye is of a dark color and nothing remarkable as to size. The wings are rather longer compared with those of the goose, but not as much so as in the brown or pied brant. The color of the plumage of this bird is uniformly a pure white except the large feathers at the extremities of the wings, which are black. The large feathers of the first joint of the wing next to the body are white. The note of this bird differs essentially from that of the goose; it more resembles that of the brown brant but is somewhat different. It is like the note of a young domestic goose which has not perfectly attained its full note. The flesh of this bird is exceedingly fine, preferable to either the goose or pied brant.

The brown or pied brant are much the same size and form as the white, only that their wings are considerably longer and more pointed. The plumage of the upper part of the body, neck, head, and tail is much the color of the Canadian goose, but rather darker because of some dark brown feathers which are distributed and irregularly scattered throughout. They do not have the white on the neck and sides of the head as the goose has, nor is the neck darker than the body. Like the goose, there are some white feathers on the rump at the joining of the tail. The beak is dark, and the legs and feet are also dark with a greenish cast. The breast and belly are of a lighter color than the back and are also irregularly intermixed with dark brown and black feathers, which give it a pied appearance. The flesh of this bird is dark and, in my estimation, rather better than that of the goose. The habits of this bird are nearly the same as those of the goose and white brant, with this difference: that they do not remain in this climate in such numbers during the winter as the others, and that it sets out earlier in the fall season on its return to the south and arrives later in the spring than the goose. I see no difference between this bird and that called simply the brant, common to the lakes, the Ohio, and Mississippi, etc.

The small goose of this country is rather less than the brant; its head and neck, like the brant's, are rather larger than those of the goose in proportion; their beak is also thicker and shorter. Their notes are more like those of our tame geese. In all other respects they are the same as the large goose, with which they so frequently associate that it was some time after I first observed this goose before I could determine whether it was a distinct species or not. I have now no hesitation in declaring them a distinct species. The large goose is the same as that common on the Atlantic coast, and known by the appellation of the wild, or Canadian goose.