GAME-BIRDS 249 



trips to and from town could have been made in a 

 day and there would have been no difficulty in 

 filling the cars each time. 



Prairie chickens indeed were unfortunate crea- 

 tures, and yet, with the exception of the turkey, 

 they were the finest game-birds America pro- 

 duced. Harassed by an ever-growing army of 

 gunners who recognized this fact, but who through 

 greediness would not relinquish their efforts to- 

 ward extermination of the species, the birds were 

 soon confronted by a second great enemy — ^the 

 plow. The world had raised a cry for more 

 wheat, and the alluvial soil of the prairies was re- 

 sponding. The boundless miles of thick sod were 

 being turned into waving oceans of brown grain. 

 The days of prairie-fowl were numbered; their 

 nests were disappearing beneath the plow. 



It perhaps was fortunate for the existence of 

 the prairie-chickens that cultivation of the land 

 did come. So great had been the slaughter from 

 guns that their ranks had already been thinned ; in 

 some localities they had, indeed, been extermi- 

 nated. Guns, without a doubt, would soon have 

 accounted for their total and irretrievable eradi- 

 cation; but the process would have been gradual 

 and scarcely seen by the sportsmen until it was 

 too late to save the birds. With the arrival of the 

 plow, however, the decrease of the chicken popula- 

 tion was so rapid that the sportsman could not 

 fail to observe it. The plow was something tangi- 



