PINNATED GROUSE. 
Tympanuchus cupido. 
Tympanuchus americanus. 
Tympanuchus americanus attwateri. 
Tympanuchus pallidicinctus. 
The familiar prairie chicken or prairie hen of a 
generation ago was the pinnated grouse, once so 
abundant in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and to the 
westward. It is remembered by older readers as abun- 
dant in our markets, where it sold for seventy-five cents 
per pair. In later years the term prairie chicken has 
been applied equally to the sharp-tail grouse, a species 
of more western distribution; and, generally, in the 
western country, any grouse found in the open are 
called: “chickens,” 
The pinnated grouse include four forms, grouped 
together under the genus Tympanuchus, a name which 
refers to the inflatable sac on the neck of all these 
grouse. All these forms are so similar as hardly to 
be distinguished by any one save a practiced ornitholo- 
gist. Birds of this group were formerly abundant on 
the Atlantic coast, as well as throughout much of the 
western country until the semi-arid plains were 
reached. So far as we know, their western boundary, 
roughly stated, was western Minnesota, eastern Ne- 
206 
