Oct. 26, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
523 
Out in the Chicken Country 
T HERE was a time when the steady advance 
of the prairie farmer drove the grouse and 
the prairie chicken before him. The birds 
loved the untrampled heather of ungrazed grasses 
and seldom were found near the domain of the 
man with the shoot-stick whose peculiarly true 
aim, owing to the price of powder and shot, re¬ 
duced their ranks when they flushed within 
range. To-day the major portion of old-time 
conditions have gone their way. The birds nest 
everywhere, and these nests are protected as 
much as possible by the owners of the land. 
Thousands of them are discovered every season 
by the farmers whose lands lie out on the prairies 
of the Dakotas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wis¬ 
consin. To bother a nest means a covey less for 
the fall shooting. The birds are encouraged with 
nesting and food and courteously discouraged 
with the scatter gun. 
If you will look over your map of Minne¬ 
sota, scan the counties of the southwestern part 
of that State and note the fairly well watered 
prairies that stretch away invitingly, you will a 
bit better understand my following paragraphs. 
There are countless creeks, each flowing through 
the center of a rich prairie valley, and none of 
them are on other than the county maps. It is 
sometimes five and sometimes ten miles from 
one valley’s creek over the rolling land that 
separates it from another. These creeks all find 
their way into the Minnesota River, the Des 
Moines River and eventually feed the Big Wet 
that carries them to the Gulf. Generally speak¬ 
ing, my remarks will fit any of the northwestern 
watered prairies. 
By AMOS BURHANS 
On the 7th of September I began a short 
trip for prairie chickens in Southwestern Min¬ 
nesota. The morning of the first day of the 
open season was cool and very damp with a 
heavy dew. The night before I had driven out 
to the home of a farmer friend, an enthusiast 
over hunting who lived right in the heart of 
the best chicken country between the Chicago & 
Northwestern Railway and the Minneapolis and 
St. Louis R. R. extension to Watertown, S. D. 
The county was the last one west of the range 
in which it lay, and from an eminence we could 
look across the valley and see the little town 
of Gary, S. D., nestling among the rolling hills. 
Practically none of the fall plowing had 
been done in this county. The shock or stook 
threshing was finished, and threshing rigs were 
drawing up to the stacks where they laid idle 
until the haying season was over, and the grain 
had “sweat’’ its sweat. Hunters were few and 
far between. A few farmers were in the field 
after certain coveys that could be easily located, 
as all of the birds had chosen to stay close to 
their hatching and drumming grounds and fre¬ 
quent the shady corn that so well protected them 
from the warm winds and beating rains of sum¬ 
mer. And the great stubble fields, witli the un¬ 
cut hay meadows of thousands of acres, gave the 
birds all the chances to escape detection. At the 
same time last season all the stubbles had been 
converted to plowed fields, the hay meadows 
were stripped of their crop, and much of the 
corn was cut and in the shock. Last season 
there appeared to be hundreds of large and small 
coveys of birds, the larger coveys meaning that 
the-birds had started to pack or flock for the 
winter. 
The dogs released, we left the farmyard at 
daylight. The chores had been completed and 
breakfast of bacon, eggs, corn bread and coffee 
stowed away in the human bunkers. Across 
Quail Creek we waded. It circled through the 
pastures and meadows, the inviting refuge of 
tangle, briars, grape vines and resin weed hiding 
numerous coveys of quail. I would estimate a 
covey to the farm. Entering a stubble of oats, 
the dogs made long casts ahead, quartered the 
field and one bolted the course for a piece of 
wheat that laid across the road to the left of 
us half a mile away. The setter, John, full of 
fire and eager to find game, be it furred or 
feathered, dropped his head a bit as he went 
ever a low knoll and came to point along the 
bank of the creek. 
“Point, Judge,” I cried, mockingly, to John’s 
owner, thinking there was nothing ahead of the 
dog, whose work I was unfamiliar with. 
“Before the day is done you’ll change your 
tune,” answered my friend. 
And sure enough, ahead of the dog, now edg¬ 
ing on into his game as we went up behind him, 
a nice covey of fully grown young quail whirred 
into the air. Both of us were surprised. And 
the dog I imagine was, too, for neither of us 
fired. The season on these little brown denizens 
did not open for three weeks, and we neither 
cared to be called “sooners.” 
John finished the field and we took to the 
road. A little white church amid a plain of 
wheat stubble and hay land was our objective 
THE DANCE OF THE PRAIRIE CHICKEN. 
