152 HUNTING TRIPS 



and indeed their parents also, are tame and 

 unsuspicious to the very verge of stupidity, 

 and at this time are often known by the 

 name of " fool-hens " among the frontiers- 

 men. They grow shyer as the season ad- 

 vances, and after the first of October are 

 difficult to approach, but even then are 

 rarely as wild as the sharp-tails. 



It is commonly believed that the flesh of 

 the sage fowl is uneatable, but this is very- 

 far from being the truth, and, on the con- 

 trary, it is excellent eating in August 

 and September, when grasshoppers con- 

 stitute their chief food, and, if the birds are 

 drawn as soon as shot, is generally per- 

 fectly palatable at other seasons of the year. 

 The first time I happened to find this out 

 was on the course of a trip taken with one 

 of my foremen as a companion through the 

 arid plains to the westward of the Little 

 Missouri. We had been gone for two or 

 three days and camped by a mud hole, 

 which was almost dry, what water it still 

 held being almost as thick as treacle. Our 



