On this day in Lewis & Clark history...
At Plum Camp near present Oacoma, Lewis attempts to collect a female pronghorn and is surprised by how fast they can run. Colter kills a new type of deer, later named a mule deer. Lewis describes the black-billed magpie and coyote.
From the journals...
Monday September 17th 1804.
this senery already rich pleasing and beatiful, was still farther hightened by immence herds of Buffaloe deer Elk and Antelopes which we saw in every direction feeding on the hills and plains. I do not think I exagerate when I estimate the number of Buffaloe which could be compreed at one view to amount to 3000.
Bison, Bison bison
Monday September 17th 1804.
we found the Antelope extreemly shye and watchfull insomuch that we had been unable to get a shot at them; when at rest they generally seelect the most elivated point in the neighbourhood, and as they are watchfull and extreemly quick of sight and their sense of smelling very accute it is almost impossible to approach them
Pronghorn, Antilocapra americana, and buffalo wallows
Sept. 17th
one of the hunters killed a bird of the Corvus genus and order of the pica & about the size of a jack-daw with a remarkable long tale. beautifully variagated. it note is not disagreeable though loud—it is a most beatifull bird.—
Black-billed magpie, Pica hudsonia
17th of Septr. Monday 1804
Colter Killed a Goat, & a Curious kind of Deer, a Darker grey than Common the hair longer & finer, the ears verry large & long a Small resepitical under its eye its tail round and white to near the end which is black & like a Cow in every other respect like a Deer, except it runs like a goat. large.
Mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus
17th of Septr. Monday 1804
The hunters brought in 8 fallow Deer & 5 Common Deer to day, Great numbers of Buffalow in the Praries, also a light Coloured woolf Covered with hair & corse fur, also a Small wolf with a large bushey tail
Coyote, Canis latrans
