^o GALLINACEOUS BIRDS— GROUSE 



the birds are everywhere preserved, as they no doubt 

 will be, the bag limit may well be increased, since per- 

 sonal interest will so regulate the killing as to save 

 enough to restock the grounds for another year. 

 Upon a preserve the natural enemies of the grouse 

 are destroyed ; suitable nesting places are not burned 

 over and the birds are fed and cared for in the winter. 

 Under such conditions large bags may again be made 

 in a day without danger of a permanent diminution of 

 the game. 



When I first went to shoot in Kansas the birds 

 were abundant. We drove out but a short distance 

 from a little village in the central part of the State, 

 and the dogs soon found and pointed a covey. There 

 was more unbroken ground than cultivated fields, and 

 the birds when flushed were scattered in the prairie 

 grass, and we had little difficulty in making large bags. 



The wide, brown prairies, level or gently undu- 

 lated, stretched away in every direction until they 

 met the sky. The small houses, more often cabins 

 or dugouts, were scattered at long intervals. There 

 were few fences, and no sign-boards forbidding the 

 shooting. The drive in the fresh, cool air of the 

 morning was followed by rapid shooting, and in the 

 heat of the day we rested often for several hours and 

 again cast off the dogs in the afternoon and enjoyed 

 the sport until sundown. There was no restraint of 

 any kind ; no law to limit the bag ; no irate farmer 

 ordered us off. The sportsman who goes to shoot 

 the prairie-grouse to-day will do well to get per- 

 mission in advance to shoot over the farms and look 

 up the law of the State he proposes to shoot in. 



