AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



309 



DESCRIPTION. 



Length from 16 to 18 in.; the males being the largest; extent, about 

 28 in.; tail, 4.5 in. Eye, bill, and feet, brownish. Upper parts varie- 

 gated with black, tawny, brown and white. Under parts regularly 

 barred with brown and white. Throat and legs, which are feathered to 

 the toes, tawny. Tail, blackish-brown and terminating in a narrow 

 edge of white. A lengthened tuft of feathers varying from two to 

 three and a half in. long, project from either side of the neck. These 

 are black, mottled towards the tips with brown and tawny. These 

 feathers on the female are much shorter and sometimes hardly notic- 

 able. 



NEST AND EGGS. 

 The nest is placed on the ground under a bush or at the foot of a 

 thick clump of prairie grass. It is only a slight hollow in the earth, 

 lined with a few dead leaves and feathers. They commence laying 

 about the last of April. A full set may contain from eight to sixteen 

 eggs, although they rarely exceed twelve in number. These are of a 

 buff or pale olive green color and are sometimes sprinkled with brown. 



HABITS. 

 A good many years ago, Prairie Chickens or Pinnated Grouse were 

 found in abundance from the Atlantic Coast to the Rocky Mountains, 

 but from various causes they have been gradually forced to limit their 

 range till they have made a final stand on the prairies of the Mississippi 

 Valley. To all appearances now, they will be able to hold their own in 

 this section. Even now during the winter months large numbers of 

 them come east to visit the homes of their ancestors. They come not 

 as living birds but as inanimate bits of frozen flesh covered with feath- 

 ers, and are displayed by hundreds in all the markets. They form a 

 carpet for the windows, and strings of them decorate the store fronts. 

 It does seem wonderful, with the thousands upon thousands of them 

 that are shot every fall, that there should be a single bird left alive. 

 When hunted with a dog, they are said to lie close and flush two or 

 three at a time, giving the hunter an opportunity to load between times, 



