PINNATED GROUSE 209 
closed between narrower black feathers; in other words, 
the edges of this dark bar are black, and this is true all 
over the bird. The lesser prairie hen is found in Kan- 
sas, southwestern Missouri, Oklahoma and _ west 
central Texas. 
Along the coast region of Texas and southwestern 
Louisiana is found a well-marked race of pinnated 
grouse, which Major Bendire named in honor of Mr. 
H. P. Attwater, who brought the bird to the attention 
of ornithologists. It is about the size of the lesser 
prairie hen, but has the foot feathered only on the 
upper two-thirds of the tarsus; the tips of the long 
feathers of the wing-like neck tufts are square. 
THE HEATH HEN. 
The bird of the Atlantic coast now known as the 
heath hen is almost extinct, the only existing colony 
being on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the 
coast of Massachusetts. It was formerly found in 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, but has long 
been exterminated from most of these regions. 
Thus, long before any of the other so-called prairie 
grouse had been discovered, the pinnated grouse was 
well known. Indeed, it may very well be that when 
the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, the first 
flesh meat that they tasted in the new country was the 
coast form of what in later times was called prairie hen 
or prairie chicken, then known as heath cocke or heath 
