AS the Pinnated Grouse, or Prairie-hen, has been of late years introduced to the London markets (thanks to steam, and the irrepressible instinct of the Yankee to earn a dollar), its form, size, colour, and general appearance, are pretty well known.

Few are found (I believe none) in the Southern States east of the Mississippi River, the country being too wooded for these prairie-loving birds.

In the North, the prairies of Illinois are famed for the numbers of these birds; but it is only because Texas has been, until lately, so little known that she has not had an equal, or greater, fame for these gamebirds, which are found upon most of her grassy seas by thousands.

In Texas, the season for pairing is March, and the breeding season continues through April and May. During this season the male can be heard in the early mornings a mile away, or more, sounding like the subdued bellowing of a bull. The hen makes her nest on the ground, laying seldom fewer than ten eggs, and sometimes more than twenty; and, were it not for the vermin—the skunks, weasels, stoats, &c, and the eagles and prairie hawks, they would soon become almost too numerous, the dry summers of Texas being very favourable for their breeding. The eggs are rather smaller, but of the same colour and shape as those of a guinea-hen.