Catlin visited the Crows during the summer of 1832 and saw many who frequented Fort Union, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, during his stay at that post. He wrote at that time: "The Crows who live on the head waters of Yellow Stone, and extend from this neighborhood also to the base of the Rocky Mountains, are similar ... to the Blackfeet: roaming about a great part of the year." And describing their habitations, he said: "The Crows, of all the tribes in this region, or on the Continent, make the most beautiful lodge ... they construct them as the Sioux do, and make them of the same material; yet they oftentimes dress the skins of which they are composed almost as white as linen, and beautifully garnish them with porcupine quills, and paint and ornament them in such a variety of ways, as renders them exceedingly picturesque and agreeable to the eye. I have procured a very beautiful one of this description, highly ornamented, and fringed with scalp-locks and sufficiently large for forty men to dine under. The poles which support it are about thirty in number, of pine, and all cut in the Rocky Mountains.... This tent, when erected, is about twenty-five feet high." (Catlin, (1), I, pp. 43-44.) Catlin's original painting of this most interesting tipi is in the National Museum, Washington, and is here reproduced in plate 46, _a_. The same was drawn and given by Catlin as plate 20 in his work. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 46 [Illustration: _a._ "Crow lodge." George Catlin] [Illustration: _b._ Crow camp at the old agency on the Yellowstone, near Shields River. Photograph by W. H. Jackson, 1871 CROW TIPIS] BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 47 [Illustration: A CAMP IN A COTTONWOOD GROVE Photograph not identified, but probably made by J. D. Hutton]