234 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
were so abundant as to be caught in pens and traps, 
and any one could kill as many as he wished. Indeed, 
Audubon speaks of a friend who was fond of practicing 
rifle shooting, who killed upward of forty in one morn- 
ing and did not pick them up. 
Twenty-five years later Audubon speaks of them as 
at that time not being found in any numbers east of 
the State of Illinois, and says that there, too, they are 
decreasing at a rapid rate. 
At the approach of spring the large packs, which 
have held together during the winter, break up into 
smaller companies of from twenty to fifty, and before 
long—in March or April—the mating begins. This 
has been spoken of by many writers as the booming 
of the prairie chicken, or the dance of the prairie hen, 
though this last term is more commonly applied to the 
spring maneuvers of the sharp-tailed grouse. This 
mating has been described in a somewhat spectacular 
manner by Audubon, but recent observers have not seen 
such fierce encounters as he describes. An excellent 
account of this mating play was printed in Forest and 
Stream many years ago by Judge John Dean Caton, 
an early settler of Illinois, who had been familiar with 
these birds for almost all his life. He says: 
“The spring of the year is the season of courtship 
with them, and it does not last all the year round, as 
it does with humans, and they do it in rather a loud 
way, too; and instead of taking the evening, as many 
people are inclined to do, they choose the early morn- 
ing. Early in the morning you may see them assemble 
