246 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
multiply and re-establish themselves in considerable 
number. To illustrate: This county, Pettis County, 
which is little larger, perhaps, than the average size 
county and fairly densely populated—Sedalia alone, 
the county seat, having a population of something over 
15,000 inhabitants, and many more average-sized 
towns—has yet remaining in it, I would say, five or 
six hundred birds. 
“Of course, it is difficult to estimate even approxi- 
mately the number of birds remaining, yet it is no un- 
common sight to see flocks of ten to twenty-five of 
these birds in the larger pastures and cornfields. A 
very reliable person told me the other day that he saw 
in the western part of our county a drove of about forty 
birds. Doubtless this was an accumulation of several 
flocks that were feeding together. 
“While, as stated, this county is thickly populated, 
there yet remain many large pastures on which the 
virgin sod has never been broken, being used as pasture 
lands, and perhaps some as large as a thousand acres 
or more. They breed in these pastures and meadows 
and feed in adjacent oat and corn fields during the sum- 
mer season. They were seen in unusually large num- 
bers this winter, which I can but attribute to the fact 
that special effort was made to protect these birds dur- 
ing their breeding season last year. 
“We were fortunate enough to secure one or two 
early convictions for hunting them out of season, and 
the gunners took alarm and very few were killed. 
What is true in this county, is true in many other coun- 
