934 The American Naturalist. [November,. 
PRAIRIE CHICKEN AND WILD PIGEON IN JACKSON 
COUNTY, MICHIGAN, 1894. 
By L. WuirNEYy WATKINS. 
It has been nearly twenty years since the last prairie 
chicken, Tympanuchus americanus, was seen in this or neighbor- 
ing localities. Occasionally reports have come to me of their 
presence still, in the vicinity of Freedom Swamps Washtenaw 
. County, and Portage and Wolf Lakes Jackson County. Care- 
ful investigation, however, has found these reports founded, 
usually, upon the exaggeration of some hunter, possessed of 
an enthusiastic turn of mind, and entirely lacking in substan- 
tial evidence. 
In 1893 we have the following notes on this species from 
neighboring counties: “ Extinct at Ann Arbor, Washtenaw 
County," Dr. J. B. Steere. “Extinct for more than thirty 
years in Monroe County," Jerome Trombley. Authorities 
have generally regarded them as a game bird figuring only in 
the romantic past of this part of Michigan. 
On April 22, 1894, Charles V. Hay, a clever sportsman of a 
town near at hand, brought me the welcome news that on the 
day previous he had actually flushed sixteen “chickens” in 
Merrill’s cranberry marsh of about thirty acres extent and 
not a mile from the village of Norvell. As Mr. Hay has 
hunted these birds on the western plains there could be little 
doubt of the identity, and sure enough they were easily found, 
in all their old-time glory, a few days later. Local hunters 
were much excited as the news spread, and old followers of the 
“sport with rod and gun” shook their gray heads in silent 
amazement. They would as soon have expected to again wit- 
ness the running ascent of the wild turkey among the broad- 
topped trees of the “ Oak Openings,” as the plunging rise of 
the prairie hen from the adjoining meadow. These birds are 
now nesting and once again the loud “ booming” of the cocks 
