1080 FOREST AND STREAM 
A Prairie Minuet—The Dancing of Prairie Chickens Is One of Their Strangest and Most Characteristic Habits. 
but is purely an expression of social tendencies. 
The prairie chicken, as we have mentioned, 
dance on some knoll, or only sparsely cov¬ 
ered with grass. There is no well defined limita¬ 
tion to their ballroom floor, and the birds scatter 
over a considerable extent of ground. The 
sharptail grouse social set are more gregarious. 
They have a little ballroom of their own, twenty 
or thirty feet around, which by the stamping of 
feet and the beating of wing> of successive 
soirees has become cleared of grass. The natives 
call these spots “chicken stamping grounds.” 
The better name would be the ballroom of the 
sharptail grouse, for here, every morning and 
evening, they pirouette and courtesy with all the 
grace and elegance of a ballroom of Colonial 
days. 
There is no hilariousness or boisterousness at 
these parties. Many male birds join in the dance, 
but are gentle and make no attempt at untimely 
battle. So under the blue Western sky and to the 
music of the prairie winds sweeping through the 
swaying grasses and the goldenrod, they recede, 
advance in twos and fours, turn on their toes, 
swell out their feathers and cluck with pleasure 
and excitement. 
During the mating season the males are pugna¬ 
cious and strut and prance with wings expanded, 
and by the beating of the wing feathers against 
the air, make a thumming noise that can be heard 
for miles. At this time they assume the most 
grandiose airs, and when two birds meet there 
is a royal fight. They spring into the air, strike 
at each other with their wings and feet, and 
finally one is defeated and departs to lead the 
life of a celibate, while the other joins a waiting 
member of the fickle sex. 
In “American Game Bird Shooting,” Dr. 
Grinnell says: 
“After the close of the mating operations the 
locations of the nests are selected. Often they may 
be in hedges and the margins of clumps of under¬ 
brush, in fence corners or along the border of 
sloughs, but often, again, in the middle of a 
field amid the tall grass. The eggs number from 
eleven to fourteen, and sets of twenty or even 
twenty-one eggs are not unknown. They vary 
in color from cream to light olive or pale brown, 
and are often regularly spotted with fine pin¬ 
points of reddish brown. Capt. Bendire regards 
the prairie chicken as one of the most prolific of 
our game birds. 
“Now, however, comes the season of danger; 
the eggs have been deposited in a slight depres¬ 
sion, scratched out among the weeds or grass, 
and the hen begins to brood. If she has nested 
early and the season is late, the streams may rise 
and flood her nest and destroy the eggs or drown 
the tiny young, if they have already hatched; or 
early prairie fires, burning among the dead grass 
and weeds of the preceding season, may destroy 
mother and clutch alike, or later still, the mow¬ 
ing machine may kill the mother or the young, 
too small to fly and too inexperienced to force 
themselves through the thick grass away from 
the approaching danger. In old times it used to 
be said that in wet seasons thousands and thou¬ 
sands of prairie chickens’ nests were ploughed 
under while the fields were being prepared for 
grain. Certain it is that the combination of all 
these dangers, together with the insatiate gunner, 
at one time came very near exterminating the 
pinnated grouse from the states of Illinois and 
Indiana. 
“If the mother bird is fortunate enough to 
bring up her young, she leads them about much 
as do other grouse, to the best feeding grounds. 
She is watchful of danger for them, and at her 
warning cry the young squat on the ground, 
which they so closely resemble, that it is almost 
impossible to find one of them. The mother uses 
every art to lead the intruder away from the 
brood. The birds grow rapidly, and by the mid¬ 
dle of August—the date at which up to within a 
few years it has been legal to shoot them—are 
nearly two-thirds grown. They are then very 
easily killed, and the sport becomes mere butch¬ 
ery. When cold weather approaches, however, 
they grow stronger of wing, and soon after this 
pack. 
“Audubon was perhaps the first to announce 
that the pinnated grouse is easily tamed and eas¬ 
ily kept. He declares also that they breed in con¬ 
finement. A number that he had while at Hen¬ 
derson were turned loose in his garden and or¬ 
chard, and within a week became so tame as to 
allow him to approach them. They really ate 
corn and vegetables, became so gentle during the 
winter as to feed from the hand of his wife, 
and altogether acted as domestic poultry might 
act. In the spring they went through the opera¬ 
tions of mating, just as did their wild brethren, 
and a number of them hatched, but at last they 
were ordered to be killed. 
“Birds sent to England became quite tame, and 
many years ago I had a dozen of these grouse in 
New York, which, when turned out in the spring, 
so readily accustomed themselves to their sur¬ 
roundings that they followed a man who was 
spading the garden, and scratched and crowded 
over the freshly turned-up earth in search of 
insects. They were less wild than so many do¬ 
mestic hens. 
“In many of its ways, the pinnated grouse 
suggests a domestic fowl. Though often carry¬ 
ing its tail drooping toward the ground, it often 
carries it upright, as a hen carries her tail. The 
mother of a young brood will fight for it, or at 
least will try to frighten away an intruder. The 
young chicks constantly talk to each other as 
they move along, and if one of them discovers 
an insect and runs after it, all those within sight 
join the pursuit. 
“No game bird has shown greater adaptability 
to environment than the prairie chicken. From 
time to time they have changed their habits to 
conform to the advance of civilization. And to¬ 
day if given sufficient protection to enable them 
to rear their young and to attain strength of 
wing and feather, they will take care of them¬ 
selves in any country that they formerly inhabited. 
