THE VANISHING PRAIRIE HEN 
of the city sportsmen, notwithstanding that 
the laws of most States have stringent 
trespass laws which give to the farmer 
absolute control of his lands where the 
prairie chickens breed and make their 
home. The city sportsmen are perfectly 
willing that it should be so, resting in the 
belief that there will always be enough 
birds to get over the line to give reasonable 
sport. The “posting” of farms, too, is 
approved also by the better class of sports- 
men. It is a protection to the birds and a 
restraint on vandalism. That is to say, it 
is a protection to the birds if the farmer 
will let them alone until September 1, and 
see that his hired help and his son do like- 
wise. There is a feeling among farmers 
that any law which conserves the game is 
but the saving of them for the hunters from 
the towns and cities. They come on to 
their lands on the opening day and let their 
dogs run riot, not only cleaning up whole 
coveys, but doing more or less damage to 
grainand fences. The provocation is strong, 
then, to get out a little in advance and get 
a few messes before the shooting opens in 
September. 
There is only one remedy for this, and 
that is the appointment of effective game 
wardens from the farming community. In 
some of the Western States—notably the 
Dakotas—there is no State game warden or 
game commission and but a few county 
wardens appointed by the Governor, none 
of whom receive a dollar of compensation. 
The impossibility of a single county game 
warden watching from 500 to 1,000 square 
miles of territory and boarding himself is 
at once apparent. And yet, when you talk 
about establishing a corps of game wardens 
in the new Northwest, who will have super- 
vision over the wild game breeding upon 
the lands of the farmers and ranches, there 
is trouble at once. I have in mind now a 
county political convention of the erstwhile 
Populist spasm in which the only resolution 

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251 
introduced was one condemning the pro- 
posed enactment of a law appointing game 
wardens. These bewhiskered statesmen 
looked upon it as a plutocratic move pure 
and simple. 
When I came into the country of which 
this is written it was primarily for the 
purpose of passing long days with the 
prairie chickens. But I landed a little in 
advance of them and found that one of the 
best Llewellin setters the late John Davison, 
of bench show fame, ever bred and raised 
could not earn his board. So I was forced 
to wait their coming, which they did in 
after years in the greatest abundance, and I 
am now sadly noting their gradual de- 
parture. But it is something in any sports- 
man’s life to have been in at the birth and 
the death of so noble a game bird. 
No bird ever lent greater charm to its 
surroundings than the pinnated grouse to 
the prairie. Without him it is no more the 
prairie, but a dismal waste. No bird has so 
thrilled the novice as the full-grown grouse 
roaring out of the grass almost at his feet, 
or caused the experienced sportsmen greater 
joy than watching a pair of blue-blood 
setters or pointers in pursuit of him on a 
cool September morning. And when the 
ducks have left the frozen slough, the sand- 
hill crane no longer dots the plain, and the 
“honk” of the goose has died away in the 
south, then the grouse is about the only 
companion left to the dweller of the prairie. 
Our children and our children’s children 
may yet hear the mellow twitter of the 
woodcock’s wing as he whirls upward 
through the somber shade, over the harvest 
field may hear the flute-like voice of little 
Bob White, and in the tangled brake bear 
the rushing wings of the ruffed grouse, but 
few shall see the pinnated grouse except as 
a rare specimen. For it is a bird that in- 
creases with the first stages of civilization, 
pauses with the second and disappears 
with the third. 
YS 
6, 
bs 
