PINNATED GROUS. 501 



very great but very unsportsman-like shots have often been made. An- 

 other practice has been that of stealing upon them unawares, guided by 

 that peculiar sound for which they are remarkable in the spring of the 

 year, called " tooting.'" By these and other means, to which I have ad- 

 verted, the birds were diminishing in numbers from year to year ; but it 

 is to be hoped that they will revive again, as they are now protected by 

 an act of the State of Massachusetts, passed in 1831, which limits the 

 time of shooting them to the months of November and December, and 

 imposes a penalty of ten dollars each bird for all that are killed, except 

 in those two months. 



" Boston, Massachusetts, December ^. 1832." 



In the western country, at the approach of winter, these birds fre- 

 quent the tops of the sumach bushes, to feed on their seeds, often in such 

 numbers that I have seen them bent by their weight ; and 1 have counted 

 more than fifty on a single apple tree, the buds of which they entirely de- 

 stroyed in a few hours. They also alight on high forest trees on the mar- 

 gins of large rivers, such as the Mississippi, to eat grapes and the berries 

 and leaves of the parasitical mistletoe. During several weeks which I 

 spent on the banks of the Mississippi, above the mouth of the Ohio, I 

 often observed flocks of them flying to and fro across the broad stream, 

 alighting at once on the highest trees with as much ease as any other 

 bird. They were then so abundant that the Indians, with whom I was 

 in company, killed them with arrows whenever they chanced to alight on 

 the ground or low bushes. 



During the sowing season, their visits to the wheat and corn fields are 

 productive of considerable damage. They are fond of grasshoppers, and 

 pursue these insects as chickens are wont to do, sometimes to a distance 

 of thirty or forty yards. They drink water like the common fowl when 

 at liberty, and, like all other species of this family, are fond of dusting 

 themselves in the paths, or among the earth of the fields. 



I have often observed them carry their tail in the manner of the Com- 

 mon Hen. During the first years of my residence at Henderson, in severe 

 winters, the number of Grous of tliis species was greatly augmented by 

 large flocks of them that evidently came from Indiana, Illinois, and even 

 from the western side of the Mississippi. They retired at the approach 

 of spring, no doubt to escape from the persecution of man. 



It would not perhaps be proper that I should sneak of the value put 



