RK-045

The Grove West Northfield ^{Cook Co Ill} Jan 25 Dear Sir Your two letters - one containing $1- were rec'd some time since I don't see yet why that extra Express Charge was made but so it was. The extra quar-ter dollar will a little more than pay postage on letters I wrote to the subscribers in Chicago to notify them where to get their books - All were satisfied I believe. In the next package of books you send please put in some more prospectuses. I have sent the ones you put in before nearly all off. I sent to any of my acquaintances who were rich enough to subscribe and asked them to show it to others. You don't say whether you like the proposition I made; to send a copy of your work

To the Buffalo Club I spoke of on condition they would promise to get subscribers. The members are all yong men of good families and could easily get many names if they would try. But I wish you to understand I only mention this in case you might think it would be profitable to you. As I before said I have no interest in the money matters of the Club and would not by any means have you do it to please me. I do not know as I shall be able to send you any quadrapeds this winter. I am attending school and we country boys have to make the most of the little oportunity we get for eduction, and do not like to spend time for other things during school time. However I have promised Prof Baird some squirrels and perhaps I will

send you some. I sent you a mouse the other day in a newspa =per What was it? Did you know that Scinrus rubra-candata was plenty here? It is one of our most common species. I have a skin of spermophilus tri-decim-lineatus do you want it? I can get plenty more next spring. Spermophilus Parryii is quite common here! The woodchuck is rather common here It did not used to be though. I never saw the Bohemian Wax Chatterer here. The Cedar bird is not ever plenty in summer I don't see it in winter. Young Sand-hill Cranes seperate immediately upon leaving the nest I stated this cautiously in my article on the Crane which I sent you but lately several persons of intelligence say they never remember seeing two yong ones together. Fact is this Sandhill crane is an excentric bird. The white one is not uncommon in Southern Illinois

I want to learn all I can about the Prairie hen and shall take the liberty of asking you some questions. How far West, East, North & South do the prairie hens go. I believe they were not as plenty at the East as here. I have seen within a few years on a spring morning over one thousand at once on their favorite breeding - or rather loving - ground - the Cocks booming at such a rate as to produce one continued roar. Even this winter I have seen flocks of several hundreds. Do not all the species of the restricted genus Zetreo have the booming pouches? what is the anatomy of these hordes any how? Do you want skins of the prairie hen? I might get you some I got a letter from Doct Kirtland a day or two ago He

is in a great deal of trouble - much sickness in his family. I sent him a few bird skins he mentioned there are rare Rallus elyans, Trinya pectoralis & Syl. apilis. I think they are all com=mon here - The two first are certainly. Does the Academy Collection lack any of them? Do you know of anything written on the American Cocci besides what Harris & Fitch have said? I mean to make these insects my particular study. You ask ^if I have ever been in Phil-adelphia. No, but I mean to go there and to some of the more southern Cities ^{more to and the see the [illegible]} One must move about or their ideas will all get into one channel, ^{and go round & round} like a horse going round in a mill. Im a Naturalist and want to see Nature in many places