o informed, though we never witnessed
the fact, that a sort of lizard and a snake live habitually with
these animals. The petit chien are justly named, as they resemble a
small dog in some particulars, although they have also some points of
similarity to the squirrel. The head resembles the squirrel in every
respect, except that the ear is shorter; the tail like that of the
ground-squirrel; the toe-nails are long, the fur is fine, and the long
hair is gray.

The following days they saw large herds of buffalo, and the copses of
timber appeared to contain elk and deer. Just below Cedar Island [adds
the journal], on a hill to the south, is the backbone of a fish,
forty-five feet long, tapering towards the tail, and in a perfect state
of petrifaction, fragments of which were collected and sent to
Washington....

_September 17._--While some of the party were engaged in the same way as
yesterday, others were employed in examining the surrounding country.
About a quarter of a mile beyond our camp, and at an elevation of twenty
feet above it, a plain extends nearly three miles parallel to the
river, and about a mile back to the hills, towards which it gradually
ascends. Here we saw a grove of plum-trees, loaded with fruit, now ripe,
and differing in nothing from those of the Atlantic States, except that
the tree is smaller and more thickly set. The ground of the plain is
occupied by the burrows of multitudes of barking squirrels, who entice
hither the wolves of a small kind, hawks, and polecats, all of which
animals we saw, and presumed that they fed on the squirrel. This plain
is intersected, nearly in its whole extent, by deep ravines, and steep,
irregular rising grounds, from one to two hundred feet. On ascending the
range of hills which border the plain, we saw a second high level plain,
stretching to the south as far as the eye could reach. To the westward a
high range of hills, about twenty miles distant, runs nearly north and
south, but not to any great extent, as their rise and termination is
embraced by one view, and they seemed covered with a verdure similar to
that of the plains. The same view extended over the irregular hills
which border the northern side of the Missouri.

All around, the country had been recently burned, and a young green
grass about four inches high covered the ground, which was enlivened by
herds of antelopes and buffalo, the last of which were in such
multitudes that we cannot exaggerate in