POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS 



515 



that the number of females exceeds the number of males in a normal summer population is a 

 question. In all probability they are not. 



TABLE 73. SUMMER SEX RATIOS OF ADULT GROUSE AS INDICATED BY 

 POPULATION ESTIMATES— ADIRONDACK AREA 

 —AUGUST 31. 1932-1912 



Supplemental data on this subject are available from the records of jrrouse that have been 

 shot in connection with disease studies, population control and other sjiecial [iroblems. There 

 is reason to believe, however, that much of these data is subject to errors which tend to 

 accumulate rather than to compensate for each other. Thus, the use of a cylinder bore gun 

 by several collectors over a period of years may have had more effect upon the se.\ ratio of 

 the birds shot than did any variations which may have actually existed in the wild. Giving a 

 wide shot pattern at close range, but with little capacity to kill at longer distances, its use 

 resulted in a tendency to take the more closely lying females with somewhat more regularity 

 than males rising at a greater distance. Therefore, instances in which the entire grouse popu- 

 lation, or nearly so, of a covert was taken are a better basis from which to draw conclusions. 



Tn table Tt are summarized data representing the collection of practically the entire grouse 

 population on a tract comjirising three comparlniciils totalling 1 ..S2(i acres adjacent to the 

 Connecticut Hill sludv area between 1934 and 1936, one coniparlmeiit being covered each year. 



TABLE 71. Si:\ RATIOS OF GROUSE COLLECTED Dl RING NKARLY COMPLET 

 ELIMINATION OF POPULVTION ON TRACT \DJ\CENT TO 

 CONNECTICUT HILL— OCTOBER-MARCH, 193V-1936 



* Dnes not include birds so badly ahot'Up that sex determination was impossible. 



To the extent tiiat the tract on which the collections were made is representative of Con- 

 necticut Hill as a whole, one may assume from these data that males exceeded females in 

 numbers during the fall and winter on the basic sludv area also, but that there seemed to be 

 a trend during the years involved toward a better balanced ratio. 



