THE SHAKP-TAILED GROUSE. 87 



resort to the stubble-fields for food in the autumn and 

 winter, and remain there all day, in cloudy weather, but 

 they only visit them each morning and evening when the 

 sun is bright and warm, the remainder of the day being 

 passed in the shade. 



They are so numerous in some of the regions beyond 

 the Eocky Mountains that a person may easily bag twenty 

 or thirty brace a day, if he is armed with a breech-loader 

 and accompanied by a steady dog. They are trapped, 

 like the prairie-chickens, by pot and market hunters, 

 and are shipped to the Eastern cities in such extensive 

 quantities as to lead a person to infer that they will be 

 extinct in a few years. If it is true that they will not 

 live in close vicinity to man, their extinction is only a 

 matter of time, unless some efforts are made to preserve 

 them in places where they may be comparatively safe 

 from his intrusion. They will be abundant enough dur- 

 ing the present generation, however, as they have a vast 

 empire, well-stocked with food, in which to roam, and 

 they suffer but little from the severity of the weather. 

 I have seen flocks, which competent judges estimated to 

 number a thousand at least, as early as November and as 

 late as February, but after the latter month they break 

 up, preparatory to mating. They do not separate in the 

 more northern regions before April, so that the broods 

 are not fit to be shot before the middle or the last of 

 September. 



Old and young are so unsuspicious in the early part of 

 autumn that they will allow the sportsman to approach 

 exceedingly close before they attempt to flee; even when 

 shot at several times they seem loth to take to the wing, 

 and depend on skulking and running as the principal 

 means of escape. Tliey are not unlike the prairie-fowl in 

 their habit of roosting, for they seek shelter at night in 

 the tallest grass, and leave it early in the morning for 

 more open spaces, except when tlie hens are accompanied 



