THE PRAIRIE CHICKEN 113 



borhood and, alighting on the corn shocks, scratch into 

 the ears and help themselves to the corn. I presume they 

 must have eaten a considerable amount of corn, but corn 

 was cheap and every one had plenty, and I do not think 

 it was missed much. 



We used to make traps of lath, building them four 

 square, a little wider at the bottom than at the top, making 

 them about two and a half or three feet high. At the 

 bottom these traps were as large each way as a common 

 lath is long. The top consisted of a trap door made of 

 lath and so hung that if a bird lighted on one half of it, 

 it would trip at once and let the bird slide down into the 

 trap while a weight on the other half of the top imme- 

 diately closed this trap door. Pieces of lath were nailed 

 every few inches around the edge of the trap and were 

 sharpened at the top so that ears of corn could be stuck 

 on them. A little corn was shelled and thrown inside 

 and a few grains scattered around the outside. On cold 

 icy days when it was difficult to scratch their way into the 

 corn in the shock this was very tempting to the prairie 

 chicken. They would first eat the corn scattered on the 

 snow and then hop up on the trap expecting to pick the 

 corn off of the ears that were stuck on the edge. Of 

 course they could not alight on the edge of the trap as 

 the ears were too close together, and since the top looked 

 perfectly secure they alighted there and fell through the 

 trap door. Sometimes we would catch as many as a dozen 

 or more in a single trap in one day. This method of catch- 

 ing them had at least the advantages of not frightening 

 the others and of not crippling any that were not killed. 



As the broad prairies began to be settled and the tall 

 grass plowed under, prairie chickens lost their best breed- 



