PINNATED GROUSE 



So numerous were they a short time since in the bar- 

 rens of Kentucky, and so contemptible were they as 

 game birds, that few huntsmen would deign to waste 

 powder and shot on them. In fact, they were held" 

 in pretty much the same estimation, or, rather, abhor- 

 rence, that the crows are now in Pennsylvania or other 

 of the Middle and Southern States, as they perpetrated 

 quite as much mischief upon the tender buds and fruits 

 of the orchards, as well as the grain in the fields, 

 and were often so destructive to the crops, that 

 it was absolutely necessary for the farmers to 

 employ their young negroes to drive them away 

 by shooting off guns and springing loud rattles 

 all around the plantations from morning till night. As 

 for eating them, such a thing was hardly dreamed of, 

 the negroes themselves preferring the coarsest food to 

 this now much admired bird ; while the young sports- 

 man exercised his skill in rifle shooting upon them, 

 in anticipation of more exciting sport among the other 

 prized denizens of the plains and forest. Prairie chick- 

 ens have not only deserted Long Island, Martha's Vine- 

 yard, Elizabeth Island, New Jersey, and their other 

 haunts to the eastward, but they have also removed 

 even farther west than the barrens of Kentucky. . . ." 



Lewis says also in the course of this article that 

 the pinnated grouse are easily domesticated, and will 

 pair and hatch in captivity all this from Audubon. 



The species has been extinct for more than forty 

 years in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Mr. Witmer 

 Stone says that up to 1868, and probably later, 



