NOTES FROM THE PRAIRIE 101 



posed to have been brought down from northern re- 

 gions during the glacial period; like Banquo's ghost, 

 they refuse to stay down. Other stones beside them 

 gradually become buried, but the bowlders are al- 

 ways on top of the ground. Is there something re- 

 pellent about them, that the earth refuses to cover 

 them 1 They seem to be of no use, for they cannot 

 be worked as other stone ; they have to be broken 

 open with heat in some way, though I did see a 

 building made of them once. The bowlders had 

 been broken and put in big squares and little squares, 

 oblong pieces and triangles. The effect was curious, 

 if not fine. 



"In those days there were such quantities of 

 game-birds, it was the sportsman's paradise, and 

 during the summer a great many gunners from the 

 cities came there. Prairie-chickens without num- 

 ber, as great a nuisance as the crows in the East, 

 only we could eat them to pay for the grain they 

 ate; also geese, turkeys, ducks, quail, and pigeons. 

 Did you ever hear the prairie-chickens during the 

 spring 1 ? I never felt sure spring had come to stay 

 till, in the early morning, there came the boom of 

 the chickens, Poor old booff. It is an indescrib- 

 able sound, as if there were a thousand saying the 

 same thing and keeping perfect time. No trouble 

 then getting a child up early in the morning, for it 

 is time for hunting prairie-chickens' nests. In the 

 most unexpected places in the wild grass the nests 

 would be found, with about sixteen eggs in them, 

 looking somewhat like a guinea-hen's egg. Of 



