There are also great numbers of snakes resembling our garter-snakes in appearance, and like them not poisonous.

Our hunters brought in three deer, a goose, some ducks, an eagle, and a tiger-cat.
Such is the extreme voracity of the vultures, that they had devoured in the space of a few hours four of the deer killed this morning; and one of our men declared that they had besides dragged a large buck about thirty yards, skinned it, and broken the backbone." The vulture here referred to is better known as the California condor, a great bird of prey which is now so nearly extinct that few specimens are ever seen, and the eggs command a great price from those who make collections of such objects.

A condor killed by one of the hunters of the Lewis and Clark expedition measured nine feet and six inches from tip to tip of its wings, three feet and ten inches from the point of the bill to the end of the tail, and six inches and a half from the back of the head to the tip of the beak.

Very few of the condors of the Andes are much larger than this, though one measuring eleven feet from tip to tip has been reported.
While camped at Quicksand, or Sandy River, the party learned that food supplies up the Columbia were scarce.

The journal says that the Indians met here were descending the river in search of food.