214 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



covered with forest. These birds are very rare 

 in fact, may almost be considered extinct in the North- 

 ern and Middle States. Within a few years they were 

 quite abundant on some portions of Long Island. They 

 were also to be found in Burlington County, N. J., 

 and in some few other places. There are, however, 

 still a few to be found on the Jersey plains, and every 

 season we hear of some of our sporting acquaintances 

 exterminating a small pack. We know of ten braces 

 being killed this season (1848), and about the same 

 number last year by the same party; and, as usual, in 

 both instances these scarce and beautiful birds were 

 butchered long before the time sanctioned by the strong 

 or, rather, the weak arm of the law. 



"Thus it is that the destructive hand of the would- 

 be respectable poacher, as well as the greedy gun of 

 the pothunter, hastens to seal the fate of the doomed 

 prairie hen in these eastern regions, and we may 

 predict with great certainty that ere long not one will 

 be found, save upon the rich plains of the West ; from 

 which also, in course of time, they will be driven and 

 ultimately perish, root and branch, from before the 

 unerring guns of their ruthless destroyers. We un- 

 derstand that there are still a few of these birds to be 

 found in Pennsylvania we believe in Northampton 

 County where the pine forests are thin and open and 

 the country about them such as prairie hens delight in. 

 They have always been abundant in the barrens of 

 Kentucky and Tennessee, as also in the balmy plains 

 and fertile prairies of Louisiana, Indiana and Illinois. 



