Displaying male from 1900. A. C. Bent, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Heath Hen was a subspecies of the Greater Prairie Chicken that ranged from New England to northern Virginia inhabiting sand plains during precolonial time. Once an abundant food source for the early colonists, the species had become decimated by the mid-1800s and by 1870 was extirpated from the mainland. A small remnant population persisted on Martha’s Vineyard for the next few decades before finally going extinct in 1932.
More more reading see Edward Howe Forbush’s A history of the game birds, wild-fowl and shore birds of Massachusetts and adjacent states. Howe was the state ornithologist from 1908-1929.