NECESSITY FOR GAME LAWS. 201 
my part, give me from eight to ten brace daily, with means 
of using them, to the most tremendous bags, if they are to 
be thrown away. Not many years since, when traveling 
through a remote and unfrequented section of the State of 
Illinois, I came across a party of young men who were dai- 
ly destroying from twenty to thirty couple per gun; and as 
the season was warm, and the connection with the railroad 
difficult and uncertain, when asked by the tavern- keeper 
what they intended doing with their game, they laughingly 
responded, “Throw it in the hog-pen;” and for upward of 
a week they continued this dastardly behavior. Can it, 
then, be wondered that game rapidly diminishes, when per- 
sons are to be found capable of such disgraceful conduct? 
The only check that I can see, is the organization of prop- 
er game-laws, and putting their enforcement in the hands 
of honest, reliable men, who will see them carried out to 
the very letter, the violation of which should be punishable 
by heavy fines, the greater part to go to the informer. 
Pinnated grouse are very capricious in choice of sites on 
which to place their nests; solitude and vicinity to favorite 
food or other causes, of which an outsider can know but 
little, must be accepted as the probable reasons. However, 
I have generally observed that a preference is shown for 
those places where the prairie is covered with bunch-grass, 
particularly if the subsurface is moist, and the neighborhood 
not overstocked with cattle. This bird is easily caused to 
desert her nest, whether the intrusion be committed by man 
or beast. On such occasions a new nursery is chosen, and 
a second lot of eggs laid; but if misfortune should deprive 
her of her brood after the young have left the egg, all idea 
of raising a second family is laid aside, and the chickless 
mother joins company with the first similarly situated un- 
fortunate she may chance to meet. Odd hen-birds, when 
found by the sportsman, are frequently supposed to be 
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