COGKS KILLED PER HUNTER 

 1946 



t'-*-'-1 21 AND OVER 

 llllllllllll I.I TO 2 



rrrz^ 01 TO I 



I I LESS THAN 



Fig. 12. — Distribution 

 and abundance of pheasants 

 in Illinois as indicated by 

 posthunting season question- 

 naires for the 1948 hunting 

 season (after Robertson 

 1958:9). 



HARVEST OF COCK PHEAS 

 1950 



flV^ BEST 



AVERAGE 



LIGHT f^^'' — V-"- 



FEW OR NONE 



'iim^m 



Fig. 13. — Distribution ' 

 and abundance of pheasants 

 in Illinois as mapped from 

 data obtained from license- 

 stub questionnaires distrib- 

 uted to hunters during the 

 1950 hunting season (after 

 Marquardt & Scott 1952: 

 5). 



in the northeastern counties in the 1920's. That pheas- 

 ants were not common during the 1920's in the area 

 described by Leopold as "scattering" or "indeterminate" 

 range was substantiated by Robertson (1958:10), who 

 cited the records of amateur ornithologists active in east- 

 central Illinois at that time. 



Pheasants became increasingly common in eas;- 

 central Illinois during the early 1930's. Yeatter [in 

 Robertson 1958:10) indicated that pheasants were 

 "relatively well established" in Champaign and adja- 

 cent counties by 1934. Mohr's data (unpublished) 

 based on the number of cocks killed per hunter per 

 county indicated that less than 15 per cent of the 

 hunters residing in the southern and western counties 

 of Illinois were successful in bagging at least one cock 

 pheasant each in 1937, whereas 58-68 per cent of the 

 hunters residing in certain counties of northeastern and 

 east-central Illinois bagged at least one cock each dur- 

 ing the same hunting season. Mohr's map of the pheas- 

 ant kill, fig. 11, shows some westward and southward 

 extension of the pheasant range and the establishment 

 of a center of abundance in Ford and Livingston 

 counties of east-central Illinois. 



Maps prepared by Robertson (1958:9) for 1948, 

 fig. 12, and by Marquardt & Scott (1952:5) for 1950, 

 fig. 13, from hunters' reports show patterns of distribu- 

 tion of pheasants somewhat similar to those indicated 

 by Leopold and Mohr, but the centers of abundance in 

 northeastern and east-central Illinois show better de- 

 lineation than the earlier maps. They show the southern 

 and the central western counties of the state still unoccu- 

 pied by pheasants and indicate the existence of a small 

 center of abundance of birds in Stephenson Coimty of 

 northwestern Illinois, a population not evident on 

 Mohr's 1937 map. 



In Illinois, the six roadside counts by rural mail 

 carriers in 1957 and 1958 were averaged in order to 

 rank 74 of the state's 102 coimties with respect to their 

 relative abundance of pheasants. The ranking was 

 based on the mean number of pheasants observed per 

 100 miles in each county during the six mail carrier 

 censuses, fig. 14. Livingston County ranked highest 

 with 75.2 pheasants per 100 miles. No piieasants were 

 observed in 28 southern counties of the state during the 

 February, 1957, census, and these counties were classed 

 as nonphcasant range. However, pheasants were re- 

 leased ('x]3enmentally in Wabash and Edwards counties 

 sulisetiuent to the Fobruarv, 1957, census. Between 30 

 and 40 per cent of all ])heasants reported during each 

 of the six roadside counts were observed in Ford and 

 Livingston counties. 



.\ composite map basetl on the data collected by 

 iiual mail carriers in Illinois during the breeding sea- 

 sons in .\i)ril, 1957 and 1958, is presented in fig. 8: 

 these April coimts best represent the distribution and 

 abundance of the population of pheasants available for 

 reproduction. The iiighest counts reported by nnal mail 

 carriers weie fioni townsliips in soulheaslern Livingston 



14 



