Prairie Chicken
As the name implies, the prairie chicken is the bird with directly opposite haunts from the ruffled grouse.
He is a bird of the Plains states and western provinces of Canada, with several close relatives in a smaller species known as the lesser prairie chicken, and also the sharp-tailed grouse and sage hen.
Many of these birds once lived in the eastern states but because of wide cultivation of the fields and the leveling of the land, were gradually limited to the broader western lands. The heath hen is extinct because of man and, for that matter, several of the same general types are found now only in rare bands.
Fortunately the pinnated grouse has more territory at its beck and call and so was able to cope better than most of the others with the advances of civilization.
The prairie chicken is about the same size and shape as the ruffed grouse, but with more drab markings and a square tail, rather than a fan.
Male chickens wear a slight crown on the head which is drab brown, unlike the darker crest of the ruffed grouse, and they sport two ruffs at the side of the neck which also do not contrast with the neck as much as the eastern partridge's ruffs contrast with his neck.
From: A Sportman's Guide to Game Birds
by: Ray Ovington - Enjoy - Don Trosper.
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