210 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



henne, later changed in pronunciation to heth'n. The 

 bird was long abundant in Massachusetts, in the open, 

 brushy country around the seacoast, where, no doubt, 

 it fed, as do its descendants to-day, at Martha's Vine- 

 yard, on acorns, berries, grass and insects. It was 

 well known in New England in the first quarter of the 

 nineteenth century, but disappeared soon after that. 



The old New England writers speak of the heath 

 cocke as common, so that, according to Wood, "Hee 

 that is a husband and will be stirring betime may kill 

 halfe a dozen in a morning." 



Mr. William Brewster, in his interesting and com- 

 plete paper, entitled "The Birds of the Cambridge 

 Region of Massachusetts," says: 



"I have been permitted to quote the following in- 

 teresting passage from 'Notes of conversations with 

 Eliza Cabot, written down by her son, J. E. C. (abot)/ 

 and printed for private circulation in 1904 : 'I recol- 

 lect the western prairie grouse in this part of the coun- 

 try. I saw one once in Newton ; and once after I was 

 married, your father went down to the cape fishing, 

 and in the woods there I saw a grouse very near me 

 and saw him puff up that orange they have on the 

 side of the neck.' Eliza Cabot was born on April 17, 

 1791, and married about 1811. Her granddaughter, 

 Mrs. Charles Almy, thinks it probable that she saw 

 the grouse in Newton about the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century, and the one on the 'cape' (Cape Cod, 

 no doubt) about 1812. That both birds were heath 

 hens can scarcely be doubted, for there is no evidence 



