QUAIL, GROUSE, ETC. 169 



seldom frequenting the timbered lands, except during sleetj'^ 

 storms or when the ground is covered with snow. Its flesh 

 is dark and it is not very highly esteemed as a table bird. 



The habits of these birds are similar to those of the 

 prairie hen. During the early breeding season they feed 

 upon grasshoppers, crickets, and other forms of insect life, 

 but afterwards upon cultivated grains gleaned from the 

 stubble in autumn and the cornfields in winter. They are 

 also fond of tender buds, berries, and fruits. When flushed 

 these birds rise from the ground with a less whirring sound 

 than the ruffed grouse or bob-white, and their flight is not 

 as swift but more protracted and with less apparent effort, 

 flapping and sailing along, often to the distance of a mile 

 or more. In the fall the birds come together and remain 

 in flocks imtil the mating season of spring. 



The nest of the prairie hen is placed on the ground, in 

 the thick prairie grass, and at the foot of bushes when the 

 earth is barren; a hollow is scratched in the soil and spar- 

 ingly lined with grasses and a few feathers. There are 

 from eight to twelve eggs, taA^iiy brown, sometimes with an 

 olive hue and occasionally sprinkled with brown. 



During the years 1869 and 1870, while the wi-iter was 

 living in southwestern Kansas, which was then the far West, 

 prairie chickens, as they were called there, were so numer- 

 ous that they were rarely used for food by the inhabitants, 

 and, as there was then no readily accessible market, the birds 

 were slaughtered for wanton sport. They have become well- 

 nigh exterminated in many localities where they were for- 

 merly very abundant, owing to the immense numbers that 

 hunters have shot to be sold in the eastern markets. 



