162 Game Survey of the North Central States 



Nelson (1887) says that a covey of 14 sharptails was shot at Waukegan, 

 Illinois, in 1853 or 1854. This marked the end of the sharptail in Illinois. 



The net conclusion to be drawn from these authorities is that the two species 

 originally overlapped in a zone extending from what is now Chicago to the 

 south boundary of Wisconsin. North of this overlapping zone everything was 

 sharptail; south of it everything was pinnated. The sharptail occupied the "oak 

 openings" of the till plain; the pinnated lived on the original prairies of the 

 prairie, riverbreak, and upper Mississippi types. 



The respective boundaries farther west are not quite clear. Hatch (1892) 

 says of the pinnated: 



"When the white man first came to Minnesota these birds were by no means 

 common. Rev. E. G. Gear . . . stated that prairie hens were seldom seen 

 at first but after . . . (settlement) . . . increased . . . from year 

 to year. Blackfoot grouse (sharptail) were the dominant grouse . . . but 

 were never found on the open uncultivated prairies." 



Of the sharptail Hatch says: 



"Thirty years ago distributed over nearly the entire state . . . (it) 

 withdraws before agriculture." 



Unfortunately Hatch does not record just where "prairie hens were seldom 

 seen at first," but the Rev. Mr. Gear, his informant, became Chaplain at Fort 

 Snelling (now St. Paul) in 1839. It may reasonably be inferred that he speaks 

 of that place and that time. 



We have here then, in the locality of St. Paul, a second, albeit somewhat 

 blurred, location of the original overlap between the two species. The pinnated 

 was uncommon, or possibly even absent, when the St. Paul region was first 

 settled. North of St. Paul everything was sharptail. 



The remainder of the overlapping range is conjectural, but it probably ex- 

 tended westward rather than northwestward from St. Paul, since Clate Tinan 

 (1906) implies that the pinnated was not originally found in South Dakota. 



The pinnated grouse may have been native to the mouth of the Trempealeau 

 River, opposite Winona, Minnesota. John Schmoker of Fountain City, Wiscon- 

 sin, told me he had lived there since 1864, and regards it as native. 



The original eastern boundary of the pinnated grouse extended east into 

 Ohio. Dawsop (1903) says it was "formerly not uncommon in the northwest 

 . . . rare in central Ohio. Now probably extinct." Wheaton (1882) says 

 the pinnated is a "rare resident in the northwest and central Ohio. Probably 



breeds." He gives the counties in which the then remaining remnants were found. 



These are shown on Map 14. 



The original western and southern boundaries of the pinnated grouse range 

 lay well beyond our north central region. It was found in vast numbers on the 

 Grand Prairie near Stuttgart, Ark., in 1887. Audubon's description of it in 

 Kentucky is well known. 



