I have
listened to its varied notes, during the spring season, with delight. It
is not an ordinary inhabitant, nor have I ever noticed it on, the St.
Mary's Straits, or on the shores of Lake Huron north of this island.
This island may, I think, be referred to as its extreme, northern and
occasional limit.

_10th_. I determined to remove from Michilimackinack to the city of New
York. More than thirty years of my life have been spent in Western
scenes, in various situations, in Western New York, the Mississippi
Valley, and the basins of the Great Lakes, The position is one which,
however suitable it is for observation on several topics, is by no means
favorable to the publication of them, while the seaboard cities possess
numerous advantages of residence, particularly for the education of the
young. So much of my time had been given to certain topics of natural
history, and to the languages and history, antiquities, manners, and
customs of the Indian tribes, that I felt a desire to preserve the
record of it, and, in fact, to study my own materials in a position more
favorable to the object than the shores, however pleasing, of these vast
inland seas. The health of Mrs. Schoolcraft having been impaired for
several years, furnished another motive for a change of residence.
However great was the geographical area to be traversed, the change
could be readily effected, and promised many of the highest
concomitants of civilization. Beyond all, it was a return to my native
State after long years of travel and wandering, adventure, and
residence, which would bear, I thought, to-be looked at and reflected on
through the mellowed medium of reminiscence and study.

The journey was easily performed by steamers and railroads, which occupy
every foot of the way, and it was accomplished without any but agreeable
incidents. I left the island, which is the object of so many pleasant
recollections, about the middle of August, and reached the city of New
York during that month, in season, after some weeks agreeably passed at
a hotel, to take a private dwelling-house in the upper part of it
(Chelsea, 19th street) early in September. I now cast myself about to
publish the results of my observation on the RED RACE, whom I had found,
in many traits, a subject of deep interest; in some things wholly
misunderstood and misrepresented; and altogether an object of the
highest humanitarian interest. But our booksellers, or rather
book-publishers,