CHARACTERISTICS 



569 



though they corroborate a general shift throughout the north-central region from high to low 

 numbers between 1932 and 1935 followed by gradual recovery, they show that individual areas 

 were often at variance with one another. For example, in 1933 when populations on the Pigeon 

 River and Munuscong Park tracts were found to have decreased sharply over the preceding 

 fall, that of the Houghton Lake area more than doubled. Two years later abundance on Munu- 

 scong Park took a marked upturn while it continued to decline at Pigeon River although pre- 

 viously the two areas had paralleled one another. 



These and many other records serve to demonstrate that ultimate understanding of the 

 part synchronism plays in the fluctuation of grouse abundance must rest on a knowledge of 

 what happens on the smaller units of range. The data of this Investigation for its Connecticut 

 Hill study area offer a clue to the nature of this relationship even though no condition of 

 severe scarcity was experienced. 



D«nsi+u v/ilhir) comparlmenT 

 Tr«nd of densily -for whole araa 



50 



Z 



^ 100 



o 

 It 

 ll. 



z 

 g 



< 

 > 



U 



o 



I- 

 z 

 u 

 o 



5 50 

 0. 



100 



I 

 I 

 I 

 I 



I 





150 



100 



50 



'/ \ / 







/• 



/ 



/ 







: i ■ • I \* 



■ ' . : ' 1 



I 

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50 



LJ 100 



1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 



YEAR 



FIGURE 60. RELATIONSHIP OF TREND IN THE AVERAGE DENSITY OF THE FALL GROUSE POPULA- 

 TION ON THE CONNECTICUT HILL AREA TO THE DENSITIES WITHIN THE VARIOUS COMPARTMENTS 



COMPRISING THE AREA 



As has been discussed elsewhere* this area is not a continuous unit of grouse habitat 

 but comprises a group of woodlot coverts more or less separated from each other by open 

 land. The basic portion, which has been used for appraising the population trend of the 

 area as a whole, has been divided into twelve compartments of 130 to 300 acres each largely 



* See Methods and Techniques, p. 695. 



