Audubon and his journals,

Abstract

How much further the poor beasts travelled, no one can tell. It happens not infrequently, when the river is entirely closed in with ice, that some hundreds of Bufifaloes attempt to cross ; their aggregate enormous weight forces the ice to break, and the whole of the gang are drowned, as it is impossible for these animals to climb over the surrounding sharp edges of the ice. We have seen not less than three nests of White-headed Eagles this day. We are fast ashore about sixteen miles belowthe Mandan Villages, and will, in all probability, reach there to-morrow morning at an early hour. It is raining yet, and the day has been a most unpleasant one. June 7, Wednesday. We had a vile night of rain, and wind from the northeast, which is still going on, and likely to continue the whole of this blessed day. Yesterday, when we had a white frost, ice was found in the kettles of Mr. Kipp's barges. We reached Fort Clark^and the Mandan Villages at half-past seven this morning. Great guns were fired from the fort and from the " Omega," as our captain took the guns from the " Trapper " at Fort Pierre. The site of this fort appears a good one, though it is placed considerably below the Mandan Village. We saw some small spots cultivated, where corn, pumpkins, and beans are grown. The fort and village are situated on the high bank, rising somewhat to the elevation of a hill. The Mandan mud huts are very far from looking poetical, although Mr. Catlin has tried to render them so by placing them in regular rows, and all of the same size and form, which is by no means the case. But different travellers have different eyes ! We saw more Indians than at any 1 " Fort Clark came in sight, with a background of the blue prairie hills, and with the gay American banner waving from the flag-staff. . . . The fort is built on a smaller scale, on a plan similar to that of all the other trading posts or forts of the company. Immediately behind the fort there were, in the prairie, seventy leather tents of the Crows." (Prince of Wied, p. 171.) Fort Clark stood on the right bank of the Missouri, and thus across the river from the original Fort Mandan built by Lewis and Clark in the fall of 1804. Maximilian has much to say of it and of Mr. Kipp. 1 This Fox was probably the cross variety of the Long-tailed Prairie

Re-examination of the historical range of the greater prairie chicken using provenance data and DNA analysis of museum collections

“…However, this claim contradicts John James Audubon's earlier reports indicating the presence of T. cupido in the ''Big Bend'' region of the Missouri River by the 1840's (Audubon 1960). Other 19th century reports from early naturalists also suggest that greater prairie chickens inhabited the Canadian prairies prior to agricultural development by European settlers.…”

Evaluating Tolerance of Herbicide and Transplantation by Cane (a Native Bamboo) for Canebrake Restoration

“…By the accounts of early naturalists, monotypic stands of cane (Arundinaria spp. ), called canebrakes, once covered a considerable portion of the Southeastern United States (Bartram 1791;Audubon 1897). Arundinaria is the only bamboo native to North America.…”

“…Limnothlypis swainsonii (Swainson's Warbler), and at least six species of butterfly (Meanley 1966;Remsen 1986;Brantley & Platt 2001). The location of canebrakes in rich soils near water and its palatability to livestock enticed many early farmers to settle nearby, overgraze and clear these grasslands for agriculture (Audubon 1897;Platt & Brantley 1997;Stewart 2007). Disruption of natural disturbance regimes, including gap dynamics, beaver herbivory, flooding events, and possibly fire, further degraded this ecosystem (Gagnon & Platt 2008).…”

John James Audubon: a birdwatcher’s fanciful flights

“…Also indirect is his allusion in his journal account of his meeting with Ge rard in Paris, the pupil of my old master, David'. 13 Audubon allowed Georges Cuvier to introduce him to the Acade mie des Sciences as a pupil of David ± a risky business, given that the academy was a hallowed branch of the Institut de France which also housed the Acade mie des Beaux-Arts.…”

“…Surely the British, who are so anxious about the emancipation of the blacks, might as well take care of the souls and bodies of the redskins. 54 Perhaps the most symptomatic of these comments on the Mandans relate to the work of George Catlin, a painter of Indian life despised by the nineteenthcentury conservatives and twentieth-century liberals. Catlin attacked civilization for its fatal fallout on Indian life, which he grew to admire and wound up glorifying.…”