MARCH 24, 
FOREST AND. STREAM. 



THE BEGINNING OF A DESERT RIVER—IN THESE CLIFFS THE 
migration season was at its height, I saw no 
warblers of any sort. Goldfinches of several 
species were in the willows on the Amargosa 
River, as were also a band of robins, come down, 
evidently, from the slopes of the Sierras to 
spend the winter in a warmer world. I looked 
for sage grouse among the less barren uplands 
of the Nevada desert, but found none, though I 
was told that in the Charleston range mentioned 
heretofore there are large flocks of them which 
the Piutes kill irrespective of season or law, 
much as they do the few remaining bighorns 
over in the Funeral Mountains on the very rim 
of Death Valley. These fellows can break the 
game laws with impunity, for no county can 
afford to send a sheriff in after them; even if 
they could, the chances are the man of the law 
would never come back, and in any event it 
would be extremely difficult to secure a con- 
viction even should the redskin be caught. 
Harry H. Dunn. 

Our long-time friend, the Forest Anp STREAM, 
one of the cleanest and brightest of all the papers 
devoted to field sports and outdoor life, appears 
in a new form. We are glad the familiar and 
picturesque headline of the cover has been re- 
tained. A year’s subscription to this admirable 
paper would be a gift to make glad the heart of 
any manly boy. The natural history and adven- 
tures which he will absorb from its pages are of 
a genuine scrt, not the idle imaginings of ama- 
teur and sentimental “animal writers.’’—Christian 
Advocate, Nashville, Tenn. 
Pinnated Grouse or Heath Hen. 
A CORRESPONDENT, attracted by the newspaper 
reports of legislation by Massachusetts to fur- 
ther protect the heath hen, asks us whether the 
pinnated grouse is not the common _ prairie 
chicken and wishes to know what is the Martha’s 
Vineyard grouse, about which the Massachusetts 
legislators are talking. 
Pinnated grouse or prairie hen are names given 
to the number of species of grouse grouped to- 
gether in the genus Tympanuchus. Birds of this 
eroup were formerly found on the Atlantic coast 
as well as out on the Western plains until the 
semi-arid region was reached. Formerly their 
Western boundary rougkly was western Minne- 
sota, eastern Nebraska and Kansas, as far as 
western Texas. 
This bird in one form or another is closely 
similar to the prairie hen which older readers will 
remember as selling for seventy-five cents a pair 
in the New York markets way back in the early 
fifties. They were extraordinarily abundant in 
Indiana and Illinois in those days. 
The heath hen formerly found in Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut, Long Island and Pennsylvania 
was very similar to the prairie hen, but was 
slightly smaller, The tufts of pointed neck feath- 
ers are shorter and the bird has slight points of 
difference in color. Martha’s Vineyard, an isl- 
and off the coast of Massachusetts, is now the 
only place where the heath hen exists. It is there 
a woodland bird, and found among almost im- 
penetrable scrub oaks and pines which cover an 
RAVENS BREED. 
area of forty square miles. There are thought 
to be not more than 150 or 200 of-these birds left 
alive, and they are therefore more nearly extinct 
than the buffalo. If they shall be carefully pro- 
tected they may be able to re-establish themselves. 
They are protected by the law and should be still 
more strongly protected by public opinion of the 
residents of Martha’s Vineyard, who ought to 
feel proud of this bird and to do everything in 
their power to protect it. Like the prairie hen 
of the Middle West the heath hens of Martha’s 
Vineyard utter a booming note in the spring and 
go through the various courtship antics so well 
described by Audubon, but owing to the character 
of the country they inhabit these operations are 
seldom seen. 
One great danger to which these birds are sub- 
jected lies in the eagerness felt by collectors of 
bird skins to possess specimens of this rare—al- 
most extinct bird. It is stated that $50 is paid 
for a skin, and as this is more than double the 
old penalty for killing the birds the fine may have 
no terrors for the bird skinner. 
It is uncertain when heath hens were last seen 
on the mainland. The older authors speak of 
them as common in Pennsylvania and New Jer- 
sey, but it may be questioned whether there are 
many people now living who have ever seen one 
in life in those States. 
Nevertheless Mr. Wittmer Stone says in his 
“Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jer- 
sey,’ that up to 1868 and probably later a few 
were said to occur on the barren plains which 
cover portions of Ocean and Burlington counties, 
