a kind of peace with them, but you know they are bad men; we do not like them; the whites do not like them; perhaps it was a party of that nation, and not Sauks, that stole our horses, and you know it was very hard to be obliged, after all our difficulties and starvations, to return to our people without either scalps or horses. We wished to obtain some trophy that should repay us for our toils." In the evening they sang for our amusement a number of tunes, whilst two or three danced as well as they could in our small chamber. A negro belonging to the Fur Company coming in on an errand, they spoke of him as the _black white man_, and one of them jokingly said, he was a Wasabajinga, or little black bear.[204] The Indians departed early on the 7th, with many thanks for the attention they had received. Before they went, they presented to us a wild cat, which {180} they had shot, but we advised them to keep it to eat on the way home, upon which they thanked us for it, as if they had never owned it. 11th. We learn that a third war-party of Omawhaws, who departed in pursuit of the Sauks before either of the others, were met by a strong party of that nation, who were on their way to the Omawhaw village; they however escaped from them with the loss of one man killed and several wounded; the loss of the Sauks is not known. The party speak highly of one of their number, a boy of twelve years, who, at a critical juncture of the engagement, ran up to several of the enemy and flashed his gun three times at them; he escaped unhurt. FOOTNOTES: [189] I. _Vespertilio pruinosus._--Ears large, short, not so long as the head, hairy on the exterior side more than half their length; _tragus_ very obtuse at tip, arcuated; _canine teeth_ large, prominent; _incisors_, only one distinct one on each side, placed very near the canine, conic, almost on a line with it, and furnished with a small tubercle on its exterior base; _nostrils_ distant; _fur_ of the back, long, black brown at base, then pale brownish-yellow, then blackish, then white; towards the rump dark ferruginous takes the place of the brownish-yellow on the fur; _beneath_ the colours are similar to those of the back; but on the anterior portion of the breast the fur is not tipped with white, and on the throat it is dull yellowish-white dusky at base; the brachial membrane is densely hairy on the anterior margin beneath; interfemoral membrane covered with fur: length nearly 4-1/2 inches. This bat is common in this region, and was observed by Mr. Thomas Nuttall at Council Bluffs. It is a fine large species, and remarkable for its many-coloured fur. It has much affinity with the New York bat, (V. novaboracensis,) but is more than double its size, and is distinguished from it by many minor characters. The late professor Barton, presented a specimen of this bat to the Philadelphia museum, that had been captured in Philadelphia.