5674. NATURAL HISTORY, Costly specimens.—
You ask if you shall say anything
to Sullivan about the bill. No; only that
it is paid. I have received letters from him explaining
the matter. It was really for the
skin and bones of the moose, as I had conjectured.
It was my fault that I had not given
him a rough idea of the expense I would be
willing to incur for them. He made the acquisition
an object of a regular campaign, and
that, too, of a winter one. The troops he employed
sallied forth, as he writes me, in the
month of March—much snow—a herd attacked—one killed—in the wilderness—a road to cut
twenty miles—to be drawn by hand from the
frontiers to his house—bones to be cleaned,
&c., &c. In fine, he puts himself to an infinitude
of trouble, more than I meant. He did it
cheerfully, and I feel myself really under obligations
to him. That the tragedy might not
want a proper catastrophe, the box, bones, and
all are lost; so that this chapter of natural history
will still remain a blank. But I have
written to him not to send me another.—
To W. S. Smith. Washington ed. ii, 284.
(P.
1787)
