238 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
to fly and too inexperienced to force themselves through 
the thick grass away from the approaching danger. 
In old times it used to be said that in wet seasons thou- 
sands and thousands of prairie chickens’ nests were 
ploughed under when the fields were being prepared 
for grain. Certain it is that the combination of al! 
these dangers, together with the insatiate gunner, at 
one time came very near exterminating the pinnated 
grouse from the States of Illinois and Indiana. 
If the mother bird is fortunate enough to bring off 
her young, she leads them about much as do other 
grouse, to the best feeding grounds. She is watchful 
of danger for them, and at her warning cry the young 
squat on the ground, which they so closely resemble 
that it is almost impossible to find one of them. The 
mother uses every art to lead the intruder away from 
the brood. The birds grow rapidly, and by the middle 
of August—the date at which up to within a few years 
it has been legal to shoot them—are nearly two-thirds 
grown. They are then very easily killed, and the 
sport becomes mere butchery. When cold weather ap- 
proaches, however, they grow stronger of wing, and 
soon after this pack. 
Audubon was perhaps the first to announce that 
the pinnated grouse is easily tamed and easily kept. 
He declares also that they breed in confinement. A 
number that he had while at Henderson were turned 
loose in his garden and orchard, and within a week 
became so tame as to allow him to approach them. 
They readily ate corn and vegetables, became so gentle 
