Identifier: cu31924090302104 (find matches)
Title: Birds that hunt and are hunted; life histories of one hundred and seventy birds of prey, game birds and water-fowls
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Blanchan, Neltje, 1865-1918
Subjects: Birds of prey Game and game-birds Waterfowl
Publisher: Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, Page
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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nt only. Fe-male smaller, the neck tufts much restricted, no inflatedsacs below them; the tail feathers with numerous distinctbuff bars. Range—Prairies of the Mississippi Valley; south to Louisianaand Texas; east to Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan andOntario; west through eastern portions of North Dakota,South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian Territory;north to Manitoba; general tendency to extension of rangewestward and contraction eastward; migration north andsouth in Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri.—A. O. U. Season—Permanent resident; only locally a migrant at northernlimit of range. Westward the prairie chicken, like the course of empire,takes its way; for although it may increase at the pioneer stage ofcivilization, it halts at the introduction of the steam plough andrailroad, to disappear forever where villages run together into cities.Doubtless its range was once far east—just how far is not certain,since the early writers confused it with the heath hen, once 278
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Bob Whites, Grouse, etc. enormously abundant, but now confined to Marthas Vineyard,where in 1890 there were about one hundred of the birds left, andnow, for the want of sufficient protection, even this pitiful rem-nant has diminished to very near the extinction point. So itwill be inevitably with the prairie chicken. Modern farmingmachines destroy thousands of eggs and young annually as theysteam over the prairies; in the small, new settlements there islittle respect paid to game laws when a dull monotony of saltpork sets up a craving for fresh meat; and since the prairiechicken has strong preferences for certain habitats, and will not orcannot live in others, evidently the day is not far distant wheneither missionary effort on behalf of this and many other birdsmust be vigorously applied, or they will certainly perish fromthe face of the earth. Since the coyote, or prairie wolf, whichhas preyed on this grouse, is being killed off, and sportsmen areendeavoring to enforce the law again

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