THE SHARP-TAILED GROUSE 79 



A recent writer for Field and Stream says he has shot 

 into packs (coveys no doubt are meant) of both birds 

 (prairie and sharp-tailed grouse) in the same field. 

 " Some years ago," he adds, " I killed an old mother- 

 bird with six young. The mother was a genuine 

 prairie-hen ; the young were mixed. Three of them 

 favored the father bird (sharp-tail) even to the tail 

 with mixed coloration, breasts barred with V-shaped 

 markings; the others had tails like the mother, mixed 

 coloration with V-shaped marks on sides of whitish 

 breast." Several varieties of pheasants are known to 

 interbreed on the preserves in England, and it may 

 be that the grouse will do the same on our grouse 

 preserves when the two birds are closely associated. 



The sharp-tailed grouse is probably extinct in 

 Northern Illinois. A close season now in force in 

 Wisconsin may save the birds in that State, but there 

 is no bird whose salvation is more dependent upon 

 the preserve, in my opinion, than the sharp-tailed 

 grouse, and in fact all of the grouse of the open 

 country. 



The ornithologist Coues, the best authority upon 

 our Western birds, says : " The pinnated-grouse pre- 

 fers to glean over cultivated fields, while the wilder 

 sharp-tailed clings to his native heath. The railway 

 will take the former along and warn the latter away.*' 



In an earlier book I expressed the opinion at vari- 

 ance with this high authority that the true reason for 

 the disappearance of the sharp-tails from the eastern 

 part of their range was to be found in the shot-gun. 

 I have observed the sharp-tails where farms were 

 being opened and found they were very fond of the 



