14 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 
cult: the lack of light both early and late, and the incessant movement 
of the birds when strutting, booming and fighting. We got some good 
footage of the prairie chickens but we also got a good many pictures 
of the grass on which they had been standing a second or two before. 
Driving home we speculated on the curious habit which makes 
these creatures come back year after year to the same ground. They 
have been returning annually to that pasture for the past eighteen 
years, and, for all the owner could tell, for a hundred years before 
that. The spot is no longer remote or in any sense secluded. During 
the whole time we were there cars were passing continuously over the 
highway, within fifty yards of some of the birds. Fortunately their 
indifference to man under the spell of their mating activities, comes at 
a time of year when they will always be protected from hunters. If 
it did not, one open season would suffice to wipe out this finest of mid- 
western game birds. 
Even as it is they need the fullest measure of protection and encour- 
agement if they are to survive. The prairie chicken cannot, like the 
quail, retreat to hedge rows as farm cultivation advances. They must 
have wild land and close to it timber or high brush. It is questionable 
whether they can hold their: own with the pheasants which have occu- 
pied much of their former range. In the absence of upland game re- 
serves or of state cooperation with farmers holding large areas of 
uncultivable land, they seem destined to follow on the trail of their 
late lamented cousin, the heath hen. 
BOOMING 
