JOURNAL AND LKTTKI;> <>} DAVII> DOUGLAS. 269

in Enirland. with a draught net, also made of Apocynum bark, and floated with hits of wood, particularly where the bottom of the river is free from rocks or stumps. The Shti-<iKi < .! /'/" user trnnxmon-tamis.. Richardson) attains a Icnirth >f ten feet, and H weight of 400 to 500 pounds in the Columbia. One of these was presented me hy my In- dian friend. Cockqiia. some months ago, and as to eat the whole was a feat even surpassing the powers of "one of King rge's chiefs," I requested him to select the part which he considered the hest. and cook it for me. This request he took a> a irreat compliment, and I must do him the justice to say that he afforded me the most comfortable meal I had enjoyed for a considerable time, out of the head and spine of this fish. A small Trout is also found abundantly in the creeks of the Columbia. Among the m<t interesting of the plants which I gathered last year is a species of Tobacco, the Xicotiana pulvendenta of Pursh. correctly surmised by Nuttall to grow on this side of the Rocky Mountains; though whether this country, or the Rocky Mountains themselves, or the banks of the Missouri, be its original habitat, I am quite unable to say. I am. how- e-er. inclined to think that it is indigenous to the mountains. where tlie hunters say that it grows plentifully, especially in the country of the Snake Indians, who may have brought it from the headwaters of the Missouri, which they annually visit, and distributed it thus in both directions, east and west of the L'l-eat chain of the Rocky Mountains. T first saw a single plant of it in the hand of an Indian at the Great Falls of the Columbia, but though I offered two ounces of manufac- tured tobacco, an enormous remuneration, he would on no account part with it. The icotiana is never sowed by the In- dians near the villages lest it should be pulled and used before it comes to perfect maturity: they select for its cultivation an open place in the wood, where they burn a dead tree or stump, and strewinir the ashes over the ground, plant the tobacco there. Fortunately. I happened to detect one of these little plantations, and supplied myself, without delay or immediate