192 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



Back in the days when they were plentiful I shot about 

 two dozen sage grouse; and I found it the most thrilling 

 grouse shooting that ever has come my way. The first 

 time that a big flock exploded close in front of me, and 

 leaped into the air, I was scared by the thunder of it, and 

 dazed by the size and beauty of the birds. As they flew 

 away from me, their big heavy bodies rocked from side to 

 side like a boat in a rolling sea. 



The finest sight of upland game birds that I ever saw was 

 a big flock of sage grouse on a level and rather open sage- 

 brush flat in the valley of Little Dry Creek, Montana (1902) , 

 very near the old LU-bar ranch. For some reason the birds 

 elected not to fly in a hurry. Perhaps they knew by wire- 

 less that we were not going to shoot any of them. At least 

 thirty birds, in full fall plumage, slowly and majestically 

 stalked in open order over the short buffalo grass, very 

 slightly obscured by the small and widely scattered clumps 

 of sage-brush, calmly looking at us and showing off. Mr. 

 Huffman and I gave them the grand hailing signal, and 

 then sat on our horses within forty feet of the head of the 

 flock, enjoying that remarkable sight. 



But alas! the pump gun has been abroad. In Dawson 

 and Custer Counties there is now about one sage grouse to 

 every twenty-five that were there in 1886, when we first 

 went in. Like other American grouse, this bird always has 

 been too unsuspicious of man, too tame, and too easily ap- 

 proached for its own good. Often it takes wing reluctantly, 

 and too late to escape. 



The sage grouse, like all other grouse save the pinnated, 

 is in no sense a migratory bird, and therefore it is not pro- 

 tected by the federal migratory bird treaty. Its fate de- 

 pends solely upon the men and women of the states that it 

 inhabits. It breeds wherever it lives, and the trampling 

 hoofs of sheep and cattle, and the guns of the sheep-herders, 

 and the coyotes, constantly make for its extermination. 



The sage grouse exists in the sage-brush country because 

 it successfully feeds upon the leaves of the sage-brush (Ar- 



