September, 1945 



Brown & Yeager: Squirrels in Illinois 



457 



Table 2. — Species ratio in Illinois squirrels as determined from 4,597 animals, some of them 

 shot by hunters and others collected by the writers, 1940, 1941 and 1942. 



hunting differential discussed in the para- 

 graph above it is suspected that the figures 

 yielded by steel trapping, which was con- 

 ducted in all three zones and in many 

 areas, are a somewhat more reliable indi- 

 cation of the relative abundance of the 

 species than the data derived from hunters' 

 questionnaires. Of the steel-trapped squir- 

 rels, 66.6 per cent were fox squirrels and 

 33.4 per cent were gray squirrels. Live 

 trapping gave a percentage of 51.2 for fox 

 squirrels and 48.8 for gray squirrels, but 

 the figures upon which these percentages 

 were based are believed to be too small 

 for reliability. 



Fox squirrels, table 3 indicates, were 



much more numerous than gray squirrels 

 in the northern and central zones, but not 

 in the southern zone when the survey was 

 made ; fox squirrels averaged more than 

 85 per cent of the kill in these first two 

 zones in the 1940—1941 period. In the 

 southern zone, the two species were taken 

 in about equal numbers, indicating pop- 

 ulations of nearly equal density. Reports 

 received from hunters chosen for their 

 reliability indicate that, for the state as a 

 whole, fox squirrels made up two-thirds 

 or slightly more of the annual kill. These 

 ratios are roughly in proportion to the 

 acreages of fox squirrel and of gray squir- 

 rel habitat in the three zones, fig. 4. 



Table 3. — Species ratio in Illinois squirrels, by zones, as determined from questionnaires 

 returned by hunters, 1940 and 1941. 



