112 UPLAND GAME BIRDS 



shooter" was a species of game-butcher then unknown, and 

 the beautiful fertile prairies and prairie-farms of Illinois, 

 Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska 

 were well stocked with Prairie Chickens. 



In spring they courted openly, and even proudly. The 

 cocks strutted, and inflated the bare, salmon-yellow air-sacs 

 on the sides of their necks, bowed low, and " Boo-hoo-hooedr 

 until the sound rolled over the bare earth in great waves. 

 Then they scattered, to nest and rear their young. In sum- 

 mer they hid themselves closely ; and no self-respecting farmer 

 dreamed of such a low act as killing one, or meddling with a 

 nest. 



In the fall, after the harvesting, and just before the corn- 

 cutting and corn-husking, the young broods were ready to 

 fly, and the flocks began to gather. They first ranged through 

 the wheat and oat stubble, gleaning; and the sport they fur- 

 nished there — dear me ! Those were the golden days of life on 

 a prairie farm. The flocks of Pinnated Grouse and quail were 

 the rightful heritage of the boys and men who toiled in the 

 fields through the raw cold of early spring, and the long, flam- 

 ing days of July and August. If the farmers only had been 

 far-sighted, and diligent in protecting for their all-too-scanty 

 recreation, and for their own tables, the game that was theirs, 

 they might have had Prairie Chickens to hunt for a century. 



But the game-devouring octopi began to reach out, from 

 Water Street, Chicago, and from New York and Boston. An 

 army of men began to "shoot for the market," and the Pin- 

 nated Grouse and quail began to "go east," by the barrel. 

 Some markets were so glutted, time after time, that unnum- 



