Bob Whites, Grouse, etc. 



of the numerous lovers that embarrass her choice. Shortly after 

 the sun rises, the circus and concert end for the day, to be 

 repeated the next morning, and the next, for a week or longer, at 

 the end of which time the inflamed cocks usually fall to fighting, 

 ^clawing at each other as they leap into the air and scatter blood 

 and feathers. To the victor belongs the sweetheart. The note 

 of the male bird is closely imitated by many farmers' boys. It 

 may be written, uch-ah-umb-boo-oo-oo-oo. 



It must be owned these birds show no great intelligence in 

 the selection of nesting sites, large numbers of homes placed in the 

 short grass of dry localities being destroyed by prairie fires annu- 

 ally, others on cultivated lands are crushed by mowing machines, 

 and those built along the marshes or sloughs are often inundated 

 in a wet season. A slight excavation, sometimes thickly, but 

 more often sparsely, lined with grasses and feathers plucked from 

 the mother's body, receives from ten to twenty eggs, ranging 

 from cream to pale brown, regularly marked with fine red- 

 dish brown dots, the coloring and spotting differing, however, 

 on almost every egg in a clutch. It is the female that bears the 

 entire burden of incubation, lasting from twenty-three days to 

 four weeks. So perfectly does her plumage mimic her surround- 

 ings that one may almost step on a nest without seeing her. 

 Like all her tribe, she is a model mother, she alone caring for 

 the downy chicks, leading them where grasshoppers and other 

 insect fare abounds, and protecting them with courageous and 

 artful tactics. 



The young are marvelously cunning in hiding in the grass. 

 Now they lie very close to a dog, and since their flesh is white 

 and toothsome, whereas that of old birds is dark and less 

 esteemed, they fill the game bags after the fifteenth of August. 

 Toward the end of summer, when there is no nursery work left 

 to do, the selfish father joins his family; other families join his, 

 or pack, until in regions where the birds have not been perse- 

 cuted several scores roam over the prairie together to feed in the 

 grain fields and on small berries and seeds. Now the grouse 

 become wilder, and, except when gorged to indolence, will fly a 

 mile or more, perhaps, so that little sport can be had with them 

 over dogs. 



"The true manner of shooting prairie fowl," says Mr. 

 Charles E. Whitehead in "Sport with Rod and Gun," "is to 



380 



