THE AMERICAN PRAIRIES. 
3G9 
minute or two ; at the most, they take time only to breathe, or to 
swallow a few grains of sand. Each flock directs its flight towards the 
quarter whence it came, and probably returns to the same place. If a 
ganga be killed when on the point of drinking, his crop will be found 
distended by seeds to such an extent that the feathers in that part have 
become puffed out. After having drank, the bird reposes, and the 
process of digestion begins. Then may be seen the flocks, divided into 
numerous groups, all abandoned to the sweet pleasure of repose. They 
sink into the holes which they themselves have dug, or settle down upon 
the sand, some on the belly, some on their side, expanding their wings 
and exposing them to the rays of the sun. For a while the gangas are 
silent, but their chattering recommences if anything suspicious makes 
its appearance. In the afternoon they take a second . repast, and 
between four o'clock and six again resort to the water-side. Remain- 
ing but a moment, for the purpose of drinking, they repair immediately 
to the spot where they intend to pass the night." 
THE PRAIRIE HEN. 
Availing ourselves of our freedom of plan, we turn to a bird 
having some afiinity to the ganga, but in several respects more 
interesting, — a bird which takes us away from the African plains and 
Asiatic wastes to the boundless prairies of America. 
These prairies occupy a very considerable area of the southern 
basin of the Mississippi, and lie on both banks of the great river, — 
extending westward to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, eastward to 
the border of the cultivated and inhabited provinces. There are no 
prairies, says Sir J. Richardson, north of Peace River, and the level 
lands skirted by the Rocky Mountains do not stretch beyond the 
Great Salt Lake. Necessarily, under so wide a range of latitude, the 
plain embraces a great variety of soil, climate, and products, but being 
almost in a natural state, it is characterized in the centre and south 
by interminable grassy plains and immense forests, in the north by 
wildernesses not less dreary than those of Siberia. 
Southward, a bare sandy waste, four hundred or five hundred miles, 
runs along the foot of the Rocky range to the forty-first parallel of 
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