RK-065

Fremont May 4^th, 1855

Friend Kennicott,

Yours of (the) March 2^d came to hand in due season.

You have great advantage over me, I in respects to skinning & stuffing as you have seen good hands and I never even any one but myself but have become more proficient than I expected when I killed my first bird last winter. As to setting up I have given that up at present as I much prefer Prof Baird's directions, just stuffing without blocks or wire. I have no work on Ornithology, or any other Nat' Hist' work. I stuffed a (female) prairie hen last winter with block and wires, and let be set[underlined] which is the best specimen I have, and that is first rate. However I cannot spend so much time as that requires. I have just finished fixing three males for Prof. Baird which the boys plowed out and save for me. They are easy to skin and stuff. I was not more than two or three hours setting up cach of my specimens & I got tired at that, and I can[ot strikethrough] skin and stuff with cotton in an hour. I have not made up my mind what I will do this summer, as regards Nat' Hist', I do not think much of finishing another collection of Insects. and I can not fix a show case of skins. I am now writing a brief catalogue of my Insects, to go with my collection to Washington City. In Feb last my brother Horace shot an Owl ([illegible]), in the timber breaking his wing only and we cut of the wing at the carpal joint

and the 'Big eye Turkey', has got well and it has afforded me an opportunity of obsevation. I do not know wheather its male or[r written over f strikethrough] female. It has commenced to crow, (hoot, for it must be a hooting or timber Owl,) and it will mawk any one that mawks him. He will eat any kind of fresh meat. Rats mice. frogs and snakes, and he swallowed a snake a foot in length this afternoon. since then ^{has eaten} a mole and he is ready for another one. he is a monstrous glutton, but endures hunger well. I would like to know the species he belongs to. He is destitute of those horn like appendages which some owls have, but upon parting the thick feather upon the sides of his head you can see an awfull hole large enough to run your finger into, and you can see half way through his head. he can hear very quick. Length 17 incs. 34,-9. Eyes large black with blue pupils, bill, and gums Brown yellow. It is a curious fact that the Cicada did not kill the limbs here where they stung them, but some of our customers complained of the Locust killing their little apple trees. I think they appeared further south than Springfield. I have seven cocoons now (in cigar boxes covered on one side with wire gauze for a cage) and hope they will be handsome moths of some kind. They are hanging out doors and have each a seperate cell or cage, and if any one is a female while she is a virgin I can catch male which will come on the out side where I can capture new ones. The idea was suggested by something of the kind that I read last winter. No more at present. Yours, William J Shaw.