Day-by-Day / September 17, 1804

September 17, 1804

Plum Camp fauna

Pleasant Camp, Oacoma, SD While the men rest at Plum (Pleasant) Camp, Lewis takes to the field and writes descriptions of the bison, pronghorn, mule deer, and black-billed magpie.

Selected Journal Entries

Mule Deer

Odocoileus hemionus

large deer with a black tip on its tail

© 2013 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Cpt. Lewis Goes Hunting[1]Originally aired weekdays by Yellowstone Public Radio during the Bicentennial observance of 2003-2006. Narrated by Hal Hansen. Scripts by Whit Hansen and Ed Jacobson. Produced by Leni Holliman. © … Continue reading

Immense Herds

this senery already rich pleasing and beatiful, was still farther hightened by immence herds of Buffaloe deer Elk and Antelopes [pronghorns] 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.
—Meriwether Lewis

Related: The American Buffalo

Speedy Pronghorn

we found the Antelope extreemly shye and watchfull insomuch that we had been unable to get a shot at them . . . . I had this day an opportunity of witnessing the agility and superior fleetness of this anamal which was to me really astonishing.
—Meriwether Lewis

Beautiful Black-billed Magpie

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.—
—Meriwether Lewis

Related: Birds of the Expedition

Curious Mule Deer

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.
—William Clark

Related: The Mule Deer

 

Notes

Notes
↑1 Originally aired weekdays by Yellowstone Public Radio during the Bicentennial observance of 2003-2006. Narrated by Hal Hansen. Scripts by Whit Hansen and Ed Jacobson. Produced by Leni Holliman. © 2003 by Yellowstone Public Radio.

Discover More

  • The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.

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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).