PRAIRIE HEN. 18 



the safety of the bird is assured. The laws relating to the close 

 season have been greatly improved, but in some States the open sea- 

 son (four months in Oklahoma and South Dakota) is still too long. 



The preservation of the prairie hen is far more difficult than that of 

 the bobwhite. The bobwhite is more prolific and does not require so 

 extensive a range. Moreover, it is swifter of wing and habitually 

 dives into the woods to escape the hunter. Before the hammerless 

 gun and the wide-ranging bird dog the grouse of the open prairie falls 

 an easy victim. It has to contend also with the trapper, besides 

 predatory birds, reptiles, and mammals. Its most deadly enemy, 

 however, is the prairie fire in spring, which destroys every nest within 

 its sweep. E. W. Nelson informs the writer that in the early seventies 

 in northwestern Illinois the farmers in many places burned the 

 prairies in spring after the prairie hens nested, and often gathered for 

 household use large numbers of the eggs thus exposed. Were it pos- 

 sible for stockmen to burn the grass a little earlier it would result in 

 the saving of thousands of birds. 



The prairie hen has the advantage, however, of yielding more 

 readily to domestication than the bobwhite, and strong efforts should 

 be made to establish preserves of domesticated birds for restocking 

 country where the species is extinct. Successful enterprises of this 

 kind would be profitable. That such domestication is possible and 

 even feasible, the appended quotation from Audubon implies : « 



The Pinnated Grous is easily tamed, and easily kept. It also breeds in con- 

 finement, and I have often felt surprised that it has not been fairly domesticated. 

 While at Henderson, I purchased sixty alive, that were expressly caught for me 

 within twelve miles of that village, and brought in a bag laid across the back 

 of a horse. I cut the tips of their wings, and turned them loose in a garden 

 and orchard about four acres in extent. Within a week they became tame 

 enough to allow me to approach them without their being frightened. * * * 

 In the course of the winter they became so gentle as to feed from the hand of 

 my wife, and walked about the garden like so many tame fowls, mingling 

 occasionally with the domestic poultry. * * * When spring returned they 

 strutted, ' tooted,' and fought, as if in the wilds where they had received their 

 birth. Many laid eggs, and a good number of young ones made their appearance. 



There is great probability of success in the restocking of much of 

 the former range of the prairie hen if undertaken in the proper way 

 and properly sustained by adequate protective laws. Successful 

 results would materially add to the assets of every farm. 



FOOD HABITS. 



For the purposes of this report the contents of 71 stomachs of 

 prairie hens have been examined. Fortunately this material repre- 

 sents not only the shooting season, but all other months except July. 

 Most of the stomachs came from the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wis- 



ffl Ornith. Biog. II, p. 495, 1835. 



