accounts of early explorers. It seems that the greater prairie chicken 

 did not occur farther west than the middle of Kansas, and that the 

 bird did not occur in impressively large numbers. The second 

 point may be inferred from the lack of comment concerning the 

 species by early explorers. Pike (see Coues, 1895:357-459) never 

 mentioned seeing prairie chickens in his travels across Kansas in 

 the autumn of 1806. Tixier (see McDermott, 1940:102-131) in 

 1840 traveled overland from Independence, Missouri, to the Osage 

 Village, thought to have been in Labette County, Kansas. He men- 

 tions seeing prairie chickens (presumably greater prairie chickens) 

 twice in Missouri near settlements, but never records their presence 

 in the Territory of Kansas. More significantly, part of his party 

 subsisted for two days on four upland plovers, Bartramia longicauda 

 (Bechstein), during an enforced stay on the prairie. Prairie 

 chickens probably were scarce or absent; if they had been abundant 

 they probably would have been used for food in place of the upland 

 plovers. Of approximately 25 references to the "prairie hen" in 

 Thwaites (1904-1906), none is certainly referable to the genus 

 Tympanuchus except in settled areas. Most significantly, Koch 

 (1836:163) mentions that the numbers of prairie chickens (pre- 

 sumably greater prairie chickens ) increased within three years after 

 settlement of the prairie lands, and suggests that the cause of the 

 increase was the food made available by cultivation. 



Baird (1860:628) wrote of the prairie chicken, "It scarcely seems 

 to occur north of the United States line, nor, perhaps, beyond the 

 beginning of the High Central Plains." McClanahan (1940:13) 

 maps the western edge of the original range of this species in 

 Kansas from approximately the eastern edge of Barber County, 

 almost due north to the Nebraska-Kansas line. Duck and Fletcher 

 (1945?: 68), after analyzing early records in Oklahoma and after 

 talking to old residents of that state, concluded that the greater 

 prairie chicken occupied most of the state east of the Panhandle, 

 and mapped the western boundary of its range as crossing the 

 Kansas line south of Medicine Lodge. Thus, it seems that before 

 the coming of the white man, the greater prairie chicken in Kansas 

 was confined to the eastern half of the State. 



Coincident with the development of intensive agriculture in the 

 eastern part of the State, the numbers of greater prairie chickens 

 declined in that area in the latter part of the 19th centmy. At 

 the same time these birds occupied previously unused range in 

 western Kansas, but later the center of population shifted back 

 to the east. Goss (1891:225) says of this species, "common in the 



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