RK-101

Elizabethtown, N York August 18' 1855

My Dear Robert,

Here I am among the Mts. of New York. where since my arrival (Aug. 2^d) we have had fires several days, and slept under a blanket - comfor table every night. To day it is very cold. We are about 8 miles from Lake Champlain among mountains that would make prairie chicken like you stare: rising right up from the plain 2 or 3000 feet, with jagged precipices and huge rocks, wondrous to behold. Within 20 miles is a small hill. (Mount Marcy) nearly six thousand feet high, on top of which I nearly froze to death one hot August night, eight years ago.

By way of a little refreshment I brought along our collection of Shrews, to monograph, and find

we have 16 species, nine of them new. Your species are Sorex cooperi, (Olirex platyrhinis of Dekay) the small chestnut brown one with long tail, and the Brachysorex talpoides, or Sorex de kayi. There are however doubtless others; one smaller than S. cooperi, with shorter tail, smaller feet, and fewer teeth. I hope you will be able to get me a good many shrews, so as to allow a thorough determination of Illinois species.

Write to me here, (where I shall be for three or four weeks longer) and tell me how you come on, and whether You have got quite well. I wish I could get out your way, this summer; but that is out of the question: perhaps I can accomplish it another season.

Yours truly S.F. Baird

Robt. Kennicott.