206 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



these times, and during the early period of incubation the males 

 meet at early dawn at particular spots termed i( " scratching - 

 grounds" where they toot and strut about with extended wings 

 and wide-spread tails, much in the pompous style of turkey-gob- 

 blers ; and, after a little while thus spent in expressing their wrath 

 and defiance, they engage in the most obstinate and sanguinary 

 conflicts, not inferior to the battles often witnessed between game- 

 cocks. 



During these encounters, they spring up in the air and strike 

 their antagonists with the utmost fury, and oftentimes with the 

 greatest effect; feathers are freely plucked from each other's 

 bodies, and their eyes are not unfrequently seriously injured be- 

 fore one or other of the combatants gives way and flies to the 

 woods for shelter. A friend of the author, who is very familiar 

 with the habits of these birds, informs him that last spring he wit- 

 nessed, for over an hour, a series of battles between a number of 

 these birds upon a favorite "beat, or scratching-ground," and de- 

 clares that, after they had all retired, he might have picked up a 

 hatful of feathers which they had torn from one another. 



The nest is formed upon the ground, in a very secret spot upon 

 the open plain, or perhaps at the foot of a small bush. It is rudely 

 constructed with a few leaves and particles of grass, and contains 

 from eight to twelve eggs of a brownish dirt- color, and somewhat 

 larger than those of the Tetrao umbellus. The prairie-hen sits 

 eighteen or nineteen days. 



The birds are able to run a very short time after hatching, and 

 the mother alone attends upon them, supplying them with food, 

 calling them around her by a cluck, and nestling them under her 

 wings at nightfall or when the weather proves unfavorable, very 

 much in the style of the common barn-hen. When the young 

 leave the nest the hen separates from her mate. The pinnated 

 grouse is not so retiring and secluded in its disposition as the other 

 variety, and is not very difficult to domesticate even when taken 

 wild, as it soon becomes tame and accustomed to the presence of 

 man. 



