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There are also a large number of pheasants on these reserves. They, 
too, should multiply and stock much of the adjoining country. 
The other two reservations already established are suited to quail. 
With the application of just enough of artificiality to help them when 
help is needed it is certain they will thrive under their new conditions 
better than they would under absolutely natural conditions. 
During the coming year it is the purpose of the commission to 
earry out this plan of game reservations until one is located in each 
county of the State. | 
These reservations will serve as fixed places for turning out pheas- 
ants and partridges. 
On these reservations they will get more needed attention and find 
a betteg food supply in winter than they would in other places. More- 
over they will be largely under the eye of the commission through the 
landowners and wardens. A good record can thus be kept of their 
conditions at all times of the year. 
These reservations will serve another useful purpose. They will 
eventually become refuges for our song and insectivorous birds. These 
birds in their migrations will soon come to know that within the bound- 
aries of these reservations they will be comparatively free from molesta- 
tion. They will not be frightened by men with guns or noisy boys with 
sticks. The reservation will prove a quiet retreat where the small birds 
may dwell in peace, during the nesting season and the period in which 
they rear their young. In fact at all times the non-game birds as well 
as.the game birds will be disposed to seek the seclusion the reservations 
afford. 
THE PRAIRIE CHICKEN. 
(Pinnated Grouse. ) 
Like the buffalo and the Indian, the prairie chicken loves the 
solitude only to be found away from the haunts of the white man. A 
little touch of civilization is agreeable to the prairie chicken, for under 
such conditions he can have the broad prairies in which to roam with 
his mate and young and find a bountiful supply of good food on the 
farmers grain fields. So it happens that men now living in Illinois 
remember that when they were young and the country was sparsely 
settled and unfenced it was no great task for a good shot with a good 
bird dog to fill a two-horse wagon with prairie chickens as the result of 
a day’s shooting. At that period there was a great amount of unbroken 
‘prairie which furnished good nesting grounds for the prairie chicken 
and room enough as well for such parade ground as this bird likes. 
Sportsmen used to come to Illinois in those days from New York, Boston 
and other Eastern cities to kill prairie chickens on our prairies, and 
they killed them each year by the thousands, without apparently decreas- 
ing the supply. In such favor was the sport of hunting prairie chickens 
at that time sportsmen crossed the ocean to spend a week or two on the 
=e oak 
