PINNATED AND SAGE GROUSE 



247 



until after the horse had been stolen. A species 

 destroyed is rarely regained. 



To-day, the Prairie-Chicken is to be numbered 

 with the buffalo and passenger-pigeon. It is 

 so nearly extinct that only a few flocks remain, 

 the most of which are in Kansas and Nebraska. 

 If hunting them with dogs continues, five years 

 hence the species will probably be quite extinct. 



Even as late as 1S74, many birds were killed 

 every winter by flying against the telegraph 

 wires along the railways. 



The Prairie Sharp-Tailed Grouse 2 inhabits 

 the Great Plains, from the states bordering the 

 Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. It is the 

 plains counterpart of the pinnated grouse, and 

 like it, is rapidly disappearing before the set- 



■~£ 



SAGE-GROUSE. 



It is useless to describe this bird. The 

 chances are that no reader of this book ever will 

 see one outside of a museum, or a large zoological 

 garden. 1 The great flocks of from one to three 

 hundred that from 1860 to 1875 were seen in 

 winter in the Iowa cornfields, are gone forever. 



1 During the first four years of its existence, the 

 N. Y. Zoological Park was able to secure only four 

 living specimens. 



tlements that are fast filling up its home. The 

 neck of the male lacks the side tuft of long, 

 pointed feathers and the naked air-sac so con- 

 spicuous on the male pinnated grouse. 



To-day, this bird is seldom seen in the open 

 sage-brush plains and bad lands of Montana 

 and Wyoming, but is occasionally found in or 



2 Ped-i-oe-ce'tes phas-i-an-el'lus cam-pes'tris. Av- 

 erage length, about 17 inches. 



