LIST AND DESCRIPTION 73 



FAMILY ODONTOPHORID^:. BOBWHITES, QUAILS; 

 FAMILY TETRAONID^:. GROUSE 



These families include such well known birds as our Prai- 

 rie Chicken, Prairie Sharp-tailed Grouse and Bobwhite or Quail. 

 They are of great economic value, not only as excellent game 

 birds, but because during the summer months a very large part 

 of their food consists of injurious insects. 



Quails or Bobwhites followed the farmer westward. The 

 first record of these birds in the State, as far as known, was in 

 1872 when Dr. Elliott Coues, the noted ornithologist, took speci- 

 mens at Fort Randall. They are non-migratory, and many per- 

 ish if caught in severe snowstorms without artificial feeding and 

 protection. Whole coveys have been found frozen or starved 

 to death upon the melting of snow in spring. In summer they 

 feed on insects, and usually upon those that are injurious to 

 crops, such as grasshoppers, chinch bugs, crickets, etc. 



Prairie Chickens, which were formerly native to the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley States farther south, also followed the farmer 

 into the northern prairie States, where they were very abundant 

 until a few years ago. They are rather scarce today, because 

 the land has become , thickly settled and they have been per- 

 sistently hunted. 



After the grain is cut they resort to stubble fields, where 

 they feed on insects and the fruit and leaves of the wild rose. 

 Very little grain is eaten until winter. When the ground is 

 covered with snow they resort to corn fields, where they eat 

 only a portion of the extra corn that the farmer has been per- 

 mitted to raise because they reduce injurious insects to the 

 minimum. 



On December 27, 1915, the crop and stomach of a Prairie 

 Chicken was examined and the contents consisted of timothy and 

 red clover leaves and a few weed seed, but not a single kernel 

 of grain was found. There was no snow on the ground. The 

 same week the crop and stomach of a Ring-necked Pheasant 

 taken in the same locality was examined and the following found : 

 132 kernels of corn, twenty-five kernels of oats, and a few seeds 

 each of wild sunflower, pigeon grass, and smartweed. 



Although Prairie Chickens gather in flocks in the fall, 



