60 AMEUICAN GAME BIRD SIIOOTHSTG. 



The prairie fowl {Cupidonia Cujndo) is probably tlie 

 best known member of its family, and is, by many per- 

 sons, considered to excel all the others in delicacy of 

 flesh and game qualities. Its general color is blackish- 

 brown, varied with tawny; the throat is buff, and the 

 vent and under tail-coverts are white. It carries the 

 well-known distensible sacs on each side of the neck, 

 and the little wings or tufts which have given it the spe- 

 cific name it bears. 



Wlien the males are soliciting the company of the 

 opposite sex in the spring, they inflate these sacs to 

 the size of a small orange, exjoand the winglets, spread 

 and erect the tail, and commence booming, or tooting, 

 long before daybreak, and continue it until sunset in 

 places where they are numerous;' but where they are 

 hunted much, they are seldom heard after sunrise. They 

 are always pugnacious, but unusually so at this period; 

 hence, if two meet, they indulge in fierce battles, which 

 terminate only by the flight or death of one of them. 

 When they are "calling." the air reservoirs, which are 

 alternately filled and emptied, jiroduce sounds not unlike 

 the roll of a muflfled drum. Tliis roll can be heard a 

 mile away in calm weather; but if the skin is punctured 

 it ceases to be resonant. As soon as the love season is 

 over, the hens leave the males and build their nests 

 of grass and leaves in the open prairie or under the shel- 

 ter of a bush. The number of eggs laid by each varies 

 from ten to sixteen; these are a light-brownish color, ir- 

 regularly spotted with black. If the first eggs are de- 

 stroyed, another set is laid, but if not, only one brood 

 is raised in a season. 



AVhen the young appear, the mother displays the 

 greatest solicitude for their welfare, and keeps steadily 

 calling to them whenever they manifest a disposition to 

 stray from her side. If a man approaches them she ruf- 

 fles up her feathers and assumes a combative attitude. 



