The ruffed grouse survival rate from one September to the next averaged 49.8 per 
cent, 1930-1941, at the Connecticut Hill study area and 42.1 per cent, 1931-1941, at the 
Adirondack study area (Bump et al. 1947), Mallard males banded as juveniles at Lake Chau- 
tauqua had a first-year survival rate of 45 per cent and a subsequent-year survival rate for 
the next 4 years of 56 to 61 per cent. Mallards of all ages and of all year-classes banded at 
McGinnis Slough had a yearly survival rate of 51 to 56 per cent the first 5 years after band- 
ing. 
NATURAL VERSUS SHOOTING LOSSES. --Shooting losses as measured by band 
recoveries reported from shot ducks furnish worthwhile figures on year-to-year hunting bags, 
but additional information is needed before these losses can be used as a measure of the total 
mortality caused by hunting. 
It is evident that a large number of hunters shooting banded ducks fail to report the 
bands. At the time he wrote, McIlhenny (1934) believed that "fully 50 per cent'' of the banded 
ducks shot were reported. Leopold (1933) polled a number of game managers and officials as 
to their estimate of the percentage of banded ducks taken but not reported; the estimates were 
as follows: the Carolinas, 80 per cent; Connecticut, 50 per cent; Memphis area (at clubs) 5 per 
cent, (elsewhere) 10 per cent; Arkansas, 60 per cent. A questionnaire study made in I1linois 
(Bellrose 1945) indicated that about 25 per cent of the duck bands taken in the state were not 
reported. 
During the 1948 hunting season the United States Fish and Wildlife Service issued 
special ''reward'"' bands. These bands, issued for use on mallards and black ducks, were simi- 
lar to other bands except that they carried a notation of a reward if sent to the Service. We 
placed 200 ''reward" bands alternately with 242 other bands on 442 mallards at the Spring Lake 
Wildlife Refuge, Savanna, Illinois, during late October and early November, 1948. Of 71 re- 
turns received up to May 1, 1949, 50 were from reward bands. Reward bands were reported 
about 2.9 times as frequently in proportion to the numbers applied as were non-reward bands. 
Probably not all reward bands taken from shot ducks were reported. However, since 
the reward bands provide the most nearly accurate figure yet available relative to bands re- 
ported by hunters, we have used this figure as a correcting factor in some of our calculations. 
Year-of-banding recoveries, corrected for banding during the hunting season, from 
Illinois-banded mallards ranged from 6 to 16 per cent, tables 9and10, and averaged about 
11 per cent. Allowing an additional 190 per cent for bands from mallards bagged but not 
reported would raise the proportion of the mallard population taken home by hunters to about 
32 per cent. It should be kept in mind that this correction is based on the 442 birds banded 
at Savanna, Illinois, and not on the complete recovery list of reward bands issued by the Fish 
and Wildlife Service to all co-operators, 
Losses through crippling are an additional shooting drain that must be reckoned with. 
Records obtained from interviewing hunters at clubs and public shooting grounds in Illinois, 
table 14, show a crippling loss that ranges between 18 and 41 per cent of the ducks bagged, de- 
pending upon the type of shooting. An over-all appraisal of hunters' reports indicates that in 
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