sceries

Sheilds killed a duck of an uncommon kind. the head beak and wing of which I preserved. the beak is remarkably wide and obtusely pointed, on it's edges it is furnished with a sceries of teeth very long and fine not unlike the teeth of a comb. the belley is of a brick red, the lower part of the neck white, the upper part or but of the wing is a sky blue, underneath which a narrow stripe of white succeeds marking the wing transversly, the large feathers are of a dark colour. tail short and pointed and consists of 12 dark brown feathers. the back is black and sides white; legs yellow and feet formed like the Duckinmallard which it also resembles in size and form. the eye is moderately large, puple black and iris of an orrange colour. the colours and appearance of the female is precisely that of the duckinmallard only, reather smaller. we are informed that the natives in this quarter were much distressed for food in the course of the last winter; they were compelled to collect the moss which grows on the pine which they boiled and eat; near this camp I observed many pine trees which appear to have been cut down about that season which they inform us was done in order to collect the seed of the longleafed pine which in those moments of distress also furnishes an article of food; the seed of this speceis of pine is about the size and much the shape of the seed of the large sunflower; they are nutricious and not unpleasent when roasted or boiled, during this month the natives also peal this pine and eat the succulent or inner bark. in the creek near our encampment I observed a falling trap constructed on the same plan with those frequent seen in the atlantic states for catching the fish decending the stream Capt.

William Clark - The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806