GROUSE-SHOOTING ON THE PRAIRIES. 299 



sailing past the shooter, very much allowance must be 

 given, or the shot will surely fall behind them. 



The best ground on which to look for them is the 

 skirts of upland woods on the edge of grain and buck- 

 wheat stubbles, or crags and knolls of red cedars, which 

 are to be found interspersed amid cultivated fields. 



On mountain sides, and in pine woods or laurel brakes, 

 I regard it nearly lost time to look for them. It is much 

 like seeking a needle in a hay-mow, and, if found, it is 

 heavy odds against killing. 



The spruce partridge, and red-necked partridge, are 

 out of the question ; as they aiford no sport. 



The other three varieties are now purely Western 

 birds ; for, although the first species did formerly exist 

 abundantly on the brush plains of Long Island, in the 

 pines on the seashore of New Jersey, and on the scrub- 

 oak mountains of North-eastern Pennsylvania, where per- 

 haps a few scattered broods may still exist, they have be- 

 come, to all intents and purposes, as a bird for sporting 

 ends, extinct. 



These species are, the pinnated grouse, or prairie 

 hen, which is identical with the heath hen, as it was 

 called on the barren lands of Long Island, and the grouse 

 of the Pennsylvania mountains and New Jersey pines; 

 the sharp- tailed grouse, found nearly on the same line of 

 country as the preceding variety, but somewhat farther to 

 the West; and the great sage grouse, or cock of the 

 plains, which is only found in the regions of the Arte- 

 misia, in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, and 

 on the verge of the American Salt Desert. 



