PRAIRIE HEN ; PRAIRIE CHICKEN ; PINNATED GROUSE. 143 



such low estimation, that no hunter deigned to shoot them. 

 They were, moreover, looked upon with ill-favor by the 

 inhabitants on account of the mischief thej' committed 

 among the fruit trees of the orchards during Winter, when 

 the}' feed u2:)on the buds, or in the Spring, when they con- 

 sumed the grain in the fields. In those da3's, in the Win- 

 ter, this Grouse would enter the farm-3'ard and feed among 

 the poultry, would even alight on the house-tops or walk 

 in the streets of the villages. On one occasion he caught 

 several alive in a stable at Henderson, where they had fol- 

 lowed some Wild Turke^^s. Twenty-five years later, Mr. 

 Audubon adds, in the same country- where they had been 

 so very abundant, scarcely one could be found. Mr. Audu- 

 bon speaks of their selling in Eastern markets, in IS-tO, at 

 from five to ten dollars per pair. This is so no longer, fa- 

 cilities in railroad transportation and their continued abun- 

 dance at the West rendering them a comparatively plentiful 

 and cheap article of food. Mr. Audubon mentions that at 

 the same period they were still to be met with in some 

 portions of New Jersey, in the "bushy" plains of Long 

 Island, on Mount Desert Island in the State of Maine, and 

 also in another tract of barren country near Mar's Hill in 

 the same State. In i-egard to the two last named localities 

 he may have been misinformed. Mr. Lawrence mentions 

 this species as still occurring in the vicinity of JS^ew York 

 City. Mr. Turnbull mentioned it as now very rare, but 

 occasionally met with in the counties of Monroe and North- 

 ampton in Pennsylvania, and on the plains in New Jersej^. 

 It is not referred to by either Professor Verrill or Mr. 

 Boardman as occurring in any part of Maine. It is, how- 

 ever, given by Mr. Mcllwraith as an occasional visitor near 

 Hamilton, in Canada, on the western frontier, a few indi- 

 viduals being occasionally observed along the banks of the 

 St. Clair Eiver, but not known to occur farther East. Mr. 

 Audubon also mentions having found these birds abundant 

 in all the vast plains bordering on the "prairies of the Ar- 

 kansas River, and on those of the Opelousas in Louisiana. 

 In I ho earliest days of Spring, even before the snows have 



