GENERAL INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 23 



their food is so abundant, that they could stand 

 shooting in and out of season, and even the trap- 

 ping and netting -which are so extensively carried on 

 in many parts ; but when the prairie is all or 

 nearly all broken up, no good breeding-places 

 remain, and young grouse are not to be found. 

 Thus it has been in a great measure about Elk- 

 hart. Late in the fall, Adieu they pack and come 

 in from the distant prairies where they breed, 

 the birds seem to be as plentiful or nearly as 

 plentiful as they were before. About the last of 

 October and in November you may see as many 

 as five hundred in a pack. They are then strong 

 and wild. Some people maintain that the pin- 

 nated grouse do not migrate from one place to 

 another. I am certain that with us they do. 

 There are now ten times as many about Elkhart 

 in November as there are in September, therefore 

 the bulk of them are not bred there. Moreover, 

 I have been at Keokuk in Iowa late in the fall, 

 and have seen the grouse coming from the interior 

 of that State in large numbers, and flying across 

 the Mississippi River into Illinois. They are 

 never known to do so at any other season, and if 

 that is not migration 1 do not know what it can 

 be. The river there is so wide that the flight 



