of large flocks. Wind caused the vegetation to wave, 

 making it difficult to locate pheasants when they began 

 to run or walk from the roosting sites. Fog, rain, heavy 

 dew, or frost caused the pheasants to hold tight to the 

 roosting sites and made them more susceptible to cap- 

 ture by night-lighting. Pheasants were most susceptible 

 to capture by night-lighting on cold, cloudy nights fol- 

 lowing rain. Snow caused the birds to be flighty. 



Pheasants were skittish and difficult to capture on 

 bright, moonlight nights when the vegetation was dry. 

 But if the vegetation was wet or frosty, moonlight seemed 

 to have little effect on the flightiness of roosting pheas- 

 ants. 



There were never nights, regardless of the weather 

 or the behavior of the pheasants, in which night-lighting 

 did not yield a sufficient capture of pheasants to make 

 the operation worth while. There was, however, con- 

 siderable variation in the ease with which pheasants 

 were captured under different nighttime conditions. 



Sometimes slight alterations in technique were nec- 

 essary to increase trapping efficiency. 



About one of every three unmarked pheasants that 

 were flushed during night-lightingoperations in 1956-57, 

 1957-58, and 1958-59 was captured, table 1. There were, 

 of course, seasonal and year-to-year variations in the 

 proportions of pheasants captured to those flushed. 



Although the total pheasant population of the study 

 area was smaller after each hunting season than before, 

 the number of pheasants per unit of cover that was ex- 

 amined was greater after the season than before. Fall 

 plowing reduced the amount of roosting cover, and by 

 the beginning of winter the pheasant population had 

 become concentrated in the remaining cover. In general, 

 the percentage of pheasants captured varied inversely 

 with the number of pheasants that were flushed per unit 

 of cover examined; the trapping effort that was expend- 

 ed per bird was greater if few birds were flushed than 

 if many birds were flushed. Proportionately larger num- 



F"ig. 8 — Attaching a bell-shaped, plastic back-tap lo a pheasant. I'he material used in this marker is Elastic I)..S. Naupa- 

 hyde, a durable, cloth-backed, vinyl resin plastic. 



