The fur of the back in the summer dress is from 3/5 to 7/10 of an inch long; but in the winter dress the longest hairs of the middle of the back are one inch and 3/4 in length. This difference in the length of the hairs, combined with a greater portion of fat, gives to the whole animal a thicker and shorter appearance; but the colours continue the same, and it is only in this latter season that the ears are fringed, which is the necessary consequence of the elongation of the hair. This species was not an unfrequent article of food at our frugal yet social meals at Engineer Cantonment, and we could always immediately distinguish the bones from those of other animals, by their remarkably red colour. The tail is even more voluminous than that of the _S. cinereus_. It seems to approach the _Sc. rufiventer_. _Geoff._ v. Dict. D. Hist. Nat. article Ecu. p. 104.--JAMES. [152] See sketch of Charbonneau in Brackenridge's _Journal_, volume vi of our series, note 3.--ED. [153] Hay Cabin Creek and Blue Water are now known respectively as the Little Blue River and Big Blue River (or Creek; not to be confounded with the Big Blue of Kansas). Both debouche in Jackson County, Missouri. The Warreruza is the modern Wakarusa (the meaning of which is variously given as "thigh deep" and "river of big weeds"), which flows across Shawnee and Douglas counties, Kansas, to the northeast corner of the latter. Full Creek (or River) is the present Upper Mill Creek, another southern tributary of the Kansas, the mouth of which is in northeastern Wabaunsee County, by a direct line about fifty miles above the confluence of the Wakarusa. Pike's chart of 1806, which Say's party possessed, shows Hay Cabin Creek, Blue Water, Warreruza, and Full River successively, south of the Missouri and Kansas. There are several other creeks, however, between the Blue Water and Warreruza which Pike does not show, and the Warreruza is a larger stream than his chart indicates. Say's party apparently mistook one of the small streams for the Warreruza, and, upon reaching the latter, mistook it in turn for Full Creek. They could hardly have traced the course of Full Creek from the lower Warreruza, where they must have been on August eleventh. This error explains their doubt, while encamped on the Kansas on August sixteenth, whether they were above or below the Indian village, which is plainly shown on Pike's chart as situated at the mouth of Blue Earth (Big Blue) River.--ED. [154] When Say's party reached the Kansas, they had crossed Johnson and Douglas counties, following the high prairie country which lies from six to fifteen miles south of the river. The camp on the thirteenth was probably not far from Lecompton; by the sixteenth, they must have been near Topeka.