94 Grouse. 



and, it being still early in the season, they labored heavily 

 as they left the ground. I fired just as they topped 

 the bluff, and as they were so close and large, and were 

 going so slowly, I was able to knock over eight birds, 

 hardly moving from my place during the entire time. 

 On our way back we ran into another covey, a much 

 smaller one, on the side of another creek ; of these I 

 got a couple ; and I got another out of still a third covey, 

 which we found out in the open, but of which the birds 

 all rose and made off together. We carrried eleven 

 birds back, most of them young and tender, and all of 

 them good eating. 



In shooting grouse we sometimes run across rabbits. 

 There are two kinds of these. One is the little cotton- 

 tail, almost precisely similar in appearance to the com- 

 mon gray rabbit of the Eastern woods. It abounds in 

 all the patches of dense cover along the river bottoms 

 and in the larger creeks, and can be quite easily shot 

 at all times, but especially when there is any snow on 

 the ground. It is eatable but hardly ever killed except 

 to poison and throw out as bait for the wolves. 



The other kind is the great jack rabbit. This is a 

 characteristic animal of the plains ; quite as much so as 

 the antelope or prairie dog. It is not very abundant, 

 but is found everywhere over the open ground, both 

 on the prairie or those river bottoms which are not 

 wooded, and in the more open valleys and along the 

 gentle slopes of the Bad Lands. Sometimes it keeps 

 to the patches of sage-brush, and in such cases will lie 

 close to the ground when approached ; but more often 



