"When I first removed to Kentucky," says Audubon, "the Pinnated Grouse were so abundant that they were held in no higher estimation as food than the most common flesh, and no hunter of Kentucky deigned to shoot them. They were, in fact, looked upon with more abhorrence than the Crows are at present in Massachusetts and Maine, on account of the mischief they committed among the fruit-trees of the orchards during winter when they fed on their buds, whilst in the spring months they picked up the grain in the fields. Children were employed to drive them away with rattles from morning till night, and also caught them in pens and traps of various kinds. In those days during the winter, the Grouse would enter the farm-yard and feed with the poultry, alight on the houses, or walk in the very streets of the villages. I recollect having caught several in a stable at Henderson, where they followed some Wild Turkeys. In the course of the same winter a friend of mine, who was fond of rifle-shooting, killed upwards of forty in one morning, but picked none of them up; so satiated with Grouse was he as well as every member of his family. My own servants preferred the fattest flitch of bacon to their flesh, and not unfrequently laid them aside as unfit for cooking." [Illustration: THE PRAIRIE HEN (_Cupidonia Americana_).] Such an account appears still more strange when we learn that in the same country where sixty years ago they could not have been sold for more than a cent a-piece, scarcely one is now to be found. The Grouse have abandoned the State of Kentucky, and removed (like the Indians) every season further westward to escape from the murderous white man. In the Eastern States where some of them still exist, game-laws have been made for their protection. The Pinnated Grouse selects for its abode wide prairies and treeless land covered only with grass or scattered bushes, and has hence received the name of the Prairie Hen; it does not, however, avoid cultivated land, but readily avails itself of the plentiful supplies of food to be found there. This species is more strictly confined to the ground than any other of its kindred, and seldom ascends the trees or bushes except in search of fruits or berries, or when pressed by severe weather. In winter these birds go on expeditions which have been called migrations, but though these occur with some regularity, their only object is to seek for favourable feeding-places. Even these short journeyings are not always undertaken, but take place in certain winters, so that many sportsmen are under the impression that these birds are non-migratory. This species is less elegant than the Ruffled Grouse, its walk resembling that of the Common Hen, although it carries its head more erect. If surprised it rises at once; but if it perceives the sportsmen from a distance and the spot around it clear, it runs off swiftly to the next high grass, there to conceal itself till danger is past. Audubon describes