THE PRAIRIE-HEN. 157 



years past, and trust, at all events, that we shall succeed in 

 making this chapter as interesting as some others which we have 

 compiled for the benefit of sportsmen. 



Wilson thus describes this bird : The pinnated grouse is nine- 

 teen inches long, twenty-seven inches in extent, and when in good 

 order weighs about three pounds and a half ; the neck is furnished 

 with supplemental wings, each composed of eighteen feathers, five 

 of which are black and about three inches long, the rest shorter, 

 also black, streaked laterally with brown, and of unequal length ; 

 the head is slightly crested ; over the eye is an elegant semicir- 

 cular comb of rich orange, which the bird has the power of raising 

 or relaxing ; under the neck-wings are two loose pendulous and 

 wrinkled skins, extending along the sides of the neck for two- 

 thirds of its length, each of which, when inflated, resembles in 

 bulk, color, and surface, a middle-sized orange ; chin cream- 

 colored ; under the eye runs a dark streak of brown ; whole upper 

 parts mottled transversely with black, reddish-brown, and white ; 

 tail short, very much rounded, and of a plain brownish soot-color ; 

 throat elegantly marked with touches of reddish-brown, white, and 

 black ; lower parts of the breast and belly pale brown, marked 

 transversely with white ; legs covered to the toes with hairy down 

 of a dirty drab-color; feet dull yellow, toes pectinated; vent 

 whitish ; bill brownish horn-color, eye reddish-hazel. The female 

 is considerably less; of a lighter color, destitute of the neck- 

 wings, the naked yellow skin on the neck, the semicircular comb 

 of yellow over the eye. 



LOCATION. 



The prairie-hen was, no doubt, at one time widely disseminated 

 over our whole country, more particularly in those portions inter- 

 spersed with dry, open plains surrounded by thin shrubbery or 

 scantily covered with trees. Unlike the ruffed grouse, this bird 

 delights in the clear, open prairie-grounds, and will desert those 

 districts entirely which in the lapse of time become covered with 

 forests. These birds are very rare in fact, may almost be con- 



