BULLETIN NUMBER FIVE 
203 
“My impression is that the sage hens are now on the in¬ 
crease, and that with continued hunting restrictions they 
should come near resuming their former status, save as in¬ 
evitably prevented by cultivation and thick settlement.’' 
THE PINNATED GROUSE, OR PRAIRIE CHICKEN. 
Everything said herein regarding the fate that threatens 
the sage and sharp-tailed grouse, and fool hen, and the dras¬ 
tic measures necessary to have them from oblivion, may be 
applied en masse to the pinnated grouse. It is unnecessary 
to go into full details regarding it. The fate of that fine 
species is up to the legislatures of the few states of the Mid¬ 
dle West that it still inhabits on a remnant basis,—Minne¬ 
sota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and the 
northern limits of Iowa. 
Already the Minnesota Game Protective League, headed 
by Mr. Clinton M. Odell, is wide awake to the fate that 
threatens the prairie chicken in Minnesota, and the League 
has gone on record with a demand for a 5-year close season, 
at once. This movement is strongly supported by the Min¬ 
neapolis Journal and other Minnesota newspapers, and we 
confidently believe that the next legislature will take reso¬ 
lute action in the form of a close season law. 
Of course it is true that in widely-separated spots in the 
Dakotas, and in winter in Iowa also, there are a few good 
flocks of prairie chickens; but let no one be deceived by 
that fact. There are only enough birds to serve as breeding 
stock in bringing back the species to some of those states! 
I think that nothing ever will really bring it back to central 
and southern Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas, or Missouri. 
The pinnated grouse is a migratory bird. It deserves 
federal protection on that basis, but I never have been able 
to make the U. S. Biological Survey admit those two facts. 
Only two weeks ago (October, 1916) Mr. Clark Williams, 
while duck-shooting in South Dakota, witnessed during sev¬ 
en days a very pronounced and impressive migration of 
