492 PINNATED GROUS. 



State of Illinois, before you meet with this species of Grous, and there 

 too, as formerly in Kentucky, they are decreasing at a rapid rate. The 

 sportsman of the Eastern States now makes much ado to procure them, 

 and will travel with friends and dogs, and all the paraphernalia of hunt- 

 ing, an hundred miles or more, to shoot at most a dozen braces in a fort- 

 night ; and when he returns successful to the city, the important results 

 are communicated by letter to all concerned. So rare have they become 

 in the markets of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, that they sell at 

 from five to ten dollars the pair. An excellent friend of mine, resident 

 in the city of New York, told me that he refused 100 dollars for ten 

 brace, which he had shot on the Pocano mountains of Pennsylvania. 



On the eastern declivities of our Atlantic coast, the districts in which 

 the Pinnated Grous are still to be met with, are some portions of the 

 State of New Jersey, the " brushy" plains of Long Island, Martha's 

 Vineyard, the Elizabeth Islands, Mount Desert Island in the State of 

 Maine, and a certain tract of Barreny country in the latter State, lying 

 not far from the famed Mar's Hill, where, however, they have been con- 

 founded with the Willow Grous. In the three first places mentioned, 

 notwithstanding the preventive laws now in force, they are killed without 

 mercy by persons such as in England are called poachers, even while the 

 female bird is in the act of sitting on her eggs. Excepting in the above 

 named places, not a bird of the species is at present to be found, until you 

 reach the lower parts of Kentucky, where, as I have told you before, a 

 few still exist. In the State of lUinois, all the vast plains of the Missouri, 

 those bordering the Arkansas River, and on the prairies of Opellousas, 

 the Pinnated Grous is still very abundant, and very easily procured. 



As soon as the snows have melted away, and the first blades of grass 

 issue from the earth, announcing the approach of spring, the Grous, 

 which had congregated during the winter in great flocks, separate into 

 parties of from twenty to fifty or more. Their love season commences, 

 and a spot is pitched upon to which they daily resort until incubation is 

 established. Inspired by love, the male birds, before the first glimpse of 

 day hghtens the horizon, fly swiftly and singly from their grassy beds, to 

 meet, to challenge, and to fight the various rivals led by the same im- 

 pulse to the arena. The male is at this season attired in his fuU dress, 

 and enacts his part in a manner not surpassed in pomposity by any other 

 bird. Imagine them assembled, to the number of twenty, by day-break, 

 see them all strutting in the presence of each other, mark their come- 



