Prairie Chicken
Of all American grouse, the species of ground grouse, found as a rule away from woodland, and com- Henry Stannard PRAIRIE CHICKEN. monly called "prairie chicken," yield most sport, though the ruffed grouse, a dweller in the woods, is a well-known and highly appreciated game bird whenever it is found. The big sage-fowl, also a grouse of the open country, the largest of all, exists so far from water that it is, ordinarily not much sought after by the men who use setters and pointers. The blue grouse, sprucegrouse, and ptarmigan are as yet chiefly killed for the pot by men who are on trips after big game. The ptarmigan, except in the extreme north, is only found high up on the mountains, and the blue grouse and spruce-grouse in thick timber, where they are frequently killed with the rifle, their heads being shot off as they sit on trees. known as There are two entirely distinct birds prairie chickens. The true prairie chicken, or pinnated grouse (Tympanuchus, or Cupidonia, cupido), of which there are several geographical sub-species, was formerly, in one of its forms, a common bird east to the Atlantic coast, but has now vanished from practically all the eastern part of its range, and has been sadly thinned out even in Illinois and Wisconsin. In Iowa and Minnesota it is still abundant, and it works its way westward with the cultivation of [POLO the land. The ordinary way to shoot the birds is to take two or three dogs for each sportsman, and a wagon to carry the entire party. The distances are so great that the dogs must travel well and range far. Men on foot could hardly cover enough ground, as it will often be necessary to pass over a mile or two of country which is not worth beating. In all likely spots the wagon is left, and the sportsmen follow their dogs, just as was done in England before the days of "battues." The birds are sometimes found in the stubble fields, and sometimes out on the prairie. Early in the season they are easy to kill. By October they are very strong and wild, and then need straight powder. They are most delicious eating.
The other kind of prairie fowl is the sharp-tailed grouse (Pediœcetes phasianellus), likewise with several geographical subspecies, and a more northern and western bird. The limits of the two species overlap; and in the Dakotas the pinnated grouse has been extending its range westwards, the sharp-tail seeming to recede before it. As the sharp-tail is specially the grouse of the cattle country, it is much followed by all sport-loving ranchmen; but as it inhabits a drier country than the pinnated grouse, it offers a rather more difficult problem for dogs. Early in the season, sharp-tails are shot precisely as ordinary prairie chickens are shot. As cold weather comes on, they assemble on the river bottoms and take to perching on the trees. They then become very wild and shy, and do not offer much sport.
The first sparse settlement of the land does not in any way interfere with the increase of these grouse. On the contrary, the ranchmen, by the war they wage on the wolves and coyotes, help the grouse in their struggle for existence. In the purely pastoral parts of Montana and the Dakotas, these birds are probably more plentiful now than they were fifty years ago. But they disappear as the settlements become dense.
This seems to be true of all the game of the plains, whether furred or feathered.
The beasts and birds of the deep woods hold their own, as those of the plains cannot.
There is no likelihood of the extinction of the ruffed grouse; it is still found in places from which the pinnated grouse has absolutely disappeared, though once the latter outnumbered it fifty to one. But both species of prairie chicken are steadily diminishing in numbers. The efforts of the game associations and sportsmen's clubs to have the game laws properly enforced have done much to arrest this diminution, and here and there to stop it; but the communi- PRONGHORN] ties as a whole will have to see more clearly than they now do the effects of wasteful slaughter of game birds and game beasts before these birds and beasts can be effectually preserved. COPYRIGHT in U.S.A.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.