hens were held separately because cocks generally 

 fought the holding bags more than did hens. In cold 

 weather, the birds adapted themselves more quickly to 

 holding bags than in warm weather. Pheasants were 

 seldom kept in holding bags longer than 1 hour before 

 being processed and released. 



The captured pheasants were processed in the rear 

 of the truck, fig. 7. The processing procedure for each 

 bird included (1) measuring the depth of the bursa (mm.) 

 to determine age, (2) measuring the length of the spur- 

 tarsus (mm.) of cocks, (3) weighing, (4) measuring the 

 length of the replacement of the most recently molted 

 wing primary (mm.), (5) attaching an aluminum butt-end 

 band to a tarsus, and (6) attaching a plastic back-tag 

 marker, fig. 8. To facilitate handling and to avoid injury 

 to the birds, we placed each pheasant headfirst into a 

 large woolen sock for all processing steps with the ex- 

 ception of attaching the back-tag marker. 



FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 



Individual pheasants were more susceptible to cap- 

 ture by night-lighting than larger groups of roosting 

 pheasants; if a single member of a larger group flushed, 

 it seemed to stimulate the entire roosting group to flush. 

 However, many of the pheasants that flushed flew only 

 short distances before alighting, usually within the 

 same field, where a second attempt could be made to 

 capture them. 



The pheasants were easier to trap after they had 

 been roosting 3 to 4 hours than thev were shortly after 

 the onset of the roosting period; trapping was most 

 efficient after midnight. Constant night-lighting within 

 any one field usually caused the pheasants in the area 

 to become skittish; trapping then became less efficient. 



Strong winds generally caused the roosting pheas- 

 ants to flush rather wildly; this was true particularly 



Fig. 7. — Processing a (-apturnd plipasant insitle the oarrv-all truck. Tho generator is behind the biologist at the left. 



