NECESSITY FOR GAME LAWS. 201 



my part, give me from eight to ten brace daily, with means 

 of using them, to the most tremendous bags, if they are to 

 be thrown away. Not many years since, when traveling 

 through a remote and unfrequented section of the State of 

 Illinois, I came across a party of young men who were dai- 

 ly destroying from twenty to thirty couple per gun ; and as 

 the season was warm, and the connection with the railroa'd 

 difficult and uncertain, when asked by the tavern-keeper 

 what they intended doing with their game, they laughingly 

 responded, " Throw it in the hog-pen ;" and for upward of 

 a week they continued this dastardly behavior. Can it, 

 then, be wondered that game rapidly diminishes, when per- 

 sons are to be found capable of such disgraceful conduct ? 

 The only check that I can see, is the organization of prop- 

 er game-laws, and putting their enforcement in the hands 

 of honest, reliable men, who will see them carried out to 

 the very letter, the violation of which should be punishable 

 by heavy fines, the greater part to go to the informer. 



Pinnated grouse are very capricious in choice of sites on 

 which to place their nests ; solitude and vicinity to favorite 

 food or other causes, of which an outsider can know but 

 little, must be accepted as the probable reasons. However, 

 I have generally observed that a preference is shown for 

 those places where the prairie is covered with bunch-grass, 

 particularly if the subsurface is moist, and the neighborhood 

 not overstocked with cattle. This bird is easily caused to 

 desert her nest, whether the intrusion be committed by man 

 or beast. On such occasions a new nursery is chosen, and 

 a second lot of eggs laid ; but if misfortune should deprive 

 her of her brood after the young have left the egg, all idea 

 of raising a second family is laid aside, and the chickless 

 mother joins company with the first similarly situated un- 

 fortunate she may chance to meet. Odd hen-birds, when 

 found by the sportsman, are frequently suppose* to be 



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