The sage grouse, unknown by the scientific community in 1805, was illustrated in Capt. Clark's journal. MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Lewis and Clark describe a bird unknown to the scientific community before 1805. By Bill Speiden

Date published: 3/18/2006

Part 65 of a series

WHILE WAITING OUT a long and wet winter at Fort Clatsop, the members of the Corps of Discovery were busy tanning hides, making clothes and moccasins, hunting, making salt and, for those who could, writing in their journals. One of the birds described by Capt. Meriwether Lewis and drawn by Capt. William Clark in his journal was the sage grouse.

Capt. Lewis wrote: "this bird is about 2/3rds the size of a turkey. the beak is large short curved and convex. the upper exceeding the lower chap [mandible], the nostrils are large and the bak [beak] black the tail is composed of 19 feathers of which that in the center is the longest, and the remaining nine on each side diminish by pairs as they receede from the center the flesh of the cock of the Plains is dark, and only tolerable in point of flavor "

From the Journals, week of Feb. 27, 1806:

FEB. 27: "Reubin Fields returned reports that there were no Elk towards point Adams. Collins who had hunted up the Netul [River] on this side returned in the evening having killed a buck Elk " --Capt. Lewis

FEB. 28: "Kuskelar a Clatsop man and his wife visited us today brought some Anchovies, Sturgeon, a beaver robe, and some roots for sail [sale] tho' they asked so high a price for every article that we purchased nothing but a part of a sturgeon for which we gave a few fishing hooks ordered hunters to return early in the morning and continue their hunt " --Capt. Lewis

MARCH 1: "We had a cloudy wet morning. I set out with 8 men and 4 hunters to bring the meat of the elk that had been killed, which was at a greater distance from the fort than any we had yet brought in. There is a large river that flows into the southeast part of Hailey's Bay; upon which about 20 miles from its mouth, our hunters discovered falls; which has about 60 feet of perpendicular pitch." --Sgt. Gass

MARCH 2: "The diet of the sick is so inferior that they recover their strength but slowly. None of them are now sick but all in a state of convalessence with keen appetities and nothing to eat except lean Elk meat The Cock of the Plains [sage grouse] is found in the plains of Columbia in great abundance " --Capt. Lewis

To see the entire "Lewis and Clark This Week" series on The Free Lance-Star's Web site, visit fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/ Projects/2005/ lewis_and_clark.

Date published: 3/18/2006