Four-and-a-Half Months’ Stay in New Harmony
Description of the region – Natural history – Messrs. Say, Lesueur, and Owen – Hunting excursions in Indiana and Illinois – Wabash, Fox River – Illinois prairies – Albion – Black River – Mr. Bodmer’s trip to New Orleans
January 27, 1833
Early in the morning, overcast sky. At seven thirty, −1°R [29.8°F, −1.3°C]. After breakfast Dreidoppel and I, accompanied by Mr. Lesueur, went to the Fox River. Williams rowed our boat. Before we got in, I shot a merganser (Mergus) on the Cutoff River and then, with the nicest moderately cold weather, we glided down the Wabash, now wide and beautiful. In the glow of the early morning sun, a large number of ducks fled before our oar strokes. We shot at several of them, but they were too far away.
At the well-known spot, the fence visible on the bank, we put Mr. Lesueur and Dreidoppel ashore. They were to follow the Fox River while I traveled to the mouth of this brook and into it, where I disembarked on a point of land. Before we reached it, we saw three or four magnificent large ospreys hovering above the river. Another one perched on a tall Platanus; we could easily have shot it with a rifle. When it flew away, I fired at it, and some of the shot hit it. After I had gotten out, I immediately saw another huge eagle on the highest branch of a Platanus; I tried three times in vain to get close to it.
[Then] I stole through the dense cane in the tall forest up along the Fox River, which unfortunately was completely covered with thin ice; thus I saw only two ducks at an open spot. Woodpeckers were tapping all around me, and the large pileated woodpecker (Picus pileatus) uttered his loud, cackling call, as did the crows, which fled from me. Higher up on the Fox I stopped, remained hidden, and waited for the ducks that the other hunters intended to drive toward me, but a splendid urubu (turkey buzzard, Cathartes aura) came streaking over me; I shot it down from high in the air so that it almost plunged down on my head.
Mr. Lesueur soon came to me. His little dog very reliably located squirrels in the trees so that I could immediately shoot one of them.
Having arrived at the boat, I found Dreidoppel, who had shot three parakeets, and Russel, the hunter, who carried a squirrel in his hand; they also had a large mussel (Unio plicatus). We crossed over to Turkey Island, where we found the heavily trodden path full of fish otter droppings. Then we combed the whole island. [We] found fresh tracks of turkeys, which were no longer here, however, and shot at ducks. The squirrels holed up in tree hollows too quickly. After Russel left, we went from there to the big Cutoff Island, where we bagged only a squirrel. After I had shot it, [it] crept into a hollow trunk, from which our little dog retrieved it. During my absence Mr. Say observed my thermometer and noted a temperature of 2 1/2°R [37.6°F, 3.1°C] at twelve o’clock.