PRAIRIE CHICKEN



DARE asked about "prairie chicken." This OED antedate (they have 1840)

is from August 1832, "On the Grouse of the Western and Northwestern

Prairies," pg. 589:



The French Creoles call them "des Phesants," the pheasants, or "poule de

prairie," "prairie chicken," by which latter name, and "prairie hen," all the

people of Illinois and Missouri still call them, and so little do they

suppose there is another name for them, that a person would not be understood

once in one hundred times, if he spoke of them under the name of grouse.



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