62 GAME-BIKDS AT HOME. 



the sand-hill crane no longer dots the plain, and 

 the Honk of the goose has died away in the 

 south, then the grouse is about the only com- 

 panion left the dweller on the prairie. Whether 

 sweeping in large flocks across the plain, now 

 on sailing pinions, now with wavering stroke of 

 wing, or on frosty mornings sitting quietly upon 

 the fence, or in colder weather studding the bare 

 branches of the timber, this bird is ever the 

 brightest light of the great solitude. Our chil- 

 dren's children may yet hear the mellow twitter 

 of the woodcock's wing as he whirls upward 

 through the somber shade, over the harvest-field 

 may hear the flutelike call of Bob White, and in 

 the darksome brake yet see the ruffed grouse 

 spread his banded tail ; but few shall see the 

 pinnated grouse, except as rare specimens. For 

 it is a bird that increases with the first stage of 

 civilization, pauses at the second, and fades for- 

 ever with the third. 



Many have seen the pinnated grouse only 

 where immense cornfields or long slough-grass 

 make the hunting difficult, where the weather is 

 intensely hot with no shade heavier than that of a 

 rosin-weed. Many have hunted them only when 



