740 



SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — GA LLIN.E — ALECTOROPODES. 



now and long has been a bird of the Mississippi Valley at large, S. to some portions of 

 Texas and Louisiana, and in the other direction extending in the Great Lake region into 

 Ontario. Its usual range includes, wholly or in part, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 

 gan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, N. and S. Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, 

 and the Indian Territory. It is creeping westward with the grain fiehls, especially along lines 

 of railroad. About 1874 it began to mix with the Sharp-tails in the vicinity of St. Paul, Minn., 

 and pushed up the Missouri beyond Sioux City, Iowa ; and this was about the time it reached 



over into the valley of 

 the Red River of the 

 North, both in Min- 

 nesota and North Da- 

 kota, and so on into 

 Manitoba. Its general 

 recession from easterly 

 localities corresponds 

 to its westward ad- 

 FiG. 490. — Foot of Prairie Hen, nat. size. (Ad. nat. del. E. C.) vance ■ the area of 



greatest abundance has altered decidedly since I penned it for the 1884 edition of the Key, 

 and will doubtless continue to shift. It is a resident bird for the most part, wherever found, 

 but some N. and S. migration with season has been locally observed, in Minnesota, Iowa, and 

 Missouri, thus mostly west of the Mississippi. Its abundance, and the excellence of its flesh, 

 render it an object of commercial importance. Though there may be little probability of its 

 extinction, legislation against its wanton or ill-timed destruction is a measure of obvious pro- 

 priety. The food of 

 this bird consists 

 largely of cultivated 

 grain, as well as of a 

 great variety of seeds 

 and berries, and also 

 insects. The winter- 

 ing packs break up 

 usually in March ; 

 there is then a period 

 of courtship with 

 strange antics and 

 much booming noise 

 before the birds quietly 

 pair oflf ; the eggs may 

 be found from the lat- 

 ter part of that month 

 through the summer, 

 but mostly April- 

 June. They are in- 

 definitely numerous, averaging over a dozen, and more than 20 have been found in one nest; 

 they average 1.75 X 1-30, with extremes in length of 1.60 to 1.85, thus averaging shorter, 

 rounder, and smaller than those of the Sharp-tail; pale greenish -gray, with sometimes a 

 glaucous bloom, usually unmarked, sometimes very minutely dotted with brown. (Cupi- 

 donia cupido of former editions of the Key, as of most authors since Baird, 1858, nee Tetrao 

 cupido Linn, as abov: restricted; C. pinnata Brewst. Auk, Jan. 1885, p. 82; Tympanu- 

 chns pinnatus Ridgw. 18£5; Cupidonia americana Reich. Syst. 1852, p. xxix, "based 





Fig. 497. — Prairie Hen. (From Lewis.) 



