104 
THE WILSON BULLETIN— June, 1922 
Gunning liad a great deal to do with their decrease. A 
bird so plentiful and so easily secured was sure to receive a 
great amount of attention from shooters. Farmers, toAvn folks, 
all, young and old, were hunting them continually. A Bu- 
chanan County newspaper of December 22, 1863,* tells of the 
enormous amount of Prairie Chickens which were coming into 
Independence, the county seat. One man sold |350 worth in 
a day, and sales of |50 to |100 Avere of frequent occurrence, 
Avliile it Avas not unusual to see three and four wagonloads of 
Prairie Chickens, Quail and Pheasants (together) on the 
streets in one day. The shipping of Prairie Chickens had as- 
sumed great proportions and some of the stores were piled 
high, preparatory to shipping east. It does not state how 
these birds Avere killed, but I infer they AAere both trapped 
and limited. Another issue of the newspaper states that the 
county’s best shooter had bagged 157 in a day Avith 150 shots. 
Still another note tells of four hunters avIio left Independence 
at 3 :00 p. m. one day, drove fifteen miles and returned the next 
evening Avitli 337 Prairie Chickens. This Avas certainly a rec- 
ord for thirteen hours or less. Great Prairie Chicken hunts, 
attended by many people, Avere frequently staged. Boys often 
kicked out the siioav burrows and killed the helpless birds when 
they came to Avhere they Avere sitting in the snoAV. This the 
boys considered great sport. 
Reports of farmers lead to the belief that the barbed-wire 
fence has been responsible for the death of countless Prairie 
Chickens. These birds fly very Ioaa^ in their short flights about 
the fields and, I am told, hundreds of times they Avere victims 
of the wires. Farmers say they have often seen the bodies of 
the impaled birds hanging on the fences. Probably many other 
low-fl}dng birds meet death in a similar manner. 
Investigation of statements also shoAvs that intentional 
prairie fires had an enormous effect on their decline in abund- 
ance. It was a common practice Avith farmers to burn off the 
prairies in the spring to remove the dead top grass. Unfor- 
tunatelA^ this Avas habitually done when the prairies Avere cov- 
ered Avith nests of the Prairie Chicken, and untold numbers of 
nests and even young were mercilessly destroyed in this way. 
After the fires had passed over these tracts, eggs Avere gathered 
up by the bushel. The fresh eggs that had been cooked in the 
* Quoted in History of Buchanan County, loiva, and Its People, by 
Harry C. and Katharyn J. Chappell, two vols., Chicago, 1914, 
