372 HAROLD C. BINGHAM 



After this experience, Prince was similarly fooled two or three 

 times. Always he left the tortoise with indifference as soon as 

 he reached the end of the trail. 



The owner of an Irish setter reported to Mr. Azeltine similar 

 experiences with his dog. 



My own observation of this confusion of turtle and chicken 

 trails occurred quite recently in the same section of the country, 

 but prairie chickens had become scarce. I was hunting behind 

 a yearling dog, Heinie, on the first day of the hunting season. 

 1 had owned the dog after he was approximately four months 

 old. His ranging privileges had been rather restricted and only 

 permitted under my own observation. 



According to the fancier who sold Heinie, the male parent 

 of the dog was a setter and the mother was a pointer. Heinie 

 resembled the pointer stock, but his hunting was typically that 

 of the setter. He relied chiefly upon trailing and, in com- 

 parison with other dogs I have used, his ability to locate game 

 was rather inferior. In trailing, however, he was a moderately 

 reliable young dog. 



Heinie' s first experience with prairie chickens came only a 

 short time before his reaction to the trail of the land tortoise. 

 In a field of stubble he had "set" quite satisfactorily a covey of 

 chickens. Following the shooting, one of the escaped birds was 

 being sought in the moderately high grass of an adjoining pasture. 

 Heinie had been unable to locate it and we were leaving when 

 he suddenly assumed the setting attitude. It was strikingly 

 similar to his behavior not more than thirty minutes earlier 

 and, despite the fact that we were some three or four hundred 

 yards from the place where we had watched the chicken down, 

 I thought he had located it. Obviously, Heinie was even more 

 earnest and excited than in his previous reaction to the covey 

 of chickens. He trembled characteristically and, as before, 

 moved forward cautiously. So low did he crouch that at times 

 his belly actually touched the ground. The direct trail that the 

 dog seemed to be following made me suspicious and the outcome 

 became even more doubtful when the distance reached some- 

 thing like one hundred yards. It was probably one hundred 

 fifty yards before we came upon the maker of the trail — a slug- 

 gish land tortoise. 



