’ 
Red clover was not nearly so hazardous a nesting cover as 
citaifeas. ewer birds wereiattracted) to red clover.” Because of the 
later mowing of this crop,.early nests escaped Géstruction, and, 
furthermore, approximately 30 per cent of this’ crop was. not mowed. 
Orchards offered, in 1958, safer nesting sites than did any 
ether type of area under cultivation in the southern vart’.of Calhoun 
County. Less than 50 per cent of the orchard acreage was mowed. Of 
tue Quail nests in orchards, 36 pér cent, hatched, despite the mowing, 
in some instances, of the immediate surroundings. While inconclusive, 
because meager, data at hand indicate that poe and wild dew- 
berry patches and other waste places. were safer nesting habitats than 
orchards; roadsides were less sdfe. 
Winter Population 
In an effort to secure some idea of the abundance of uplanc 
game during the winter of 1937-38, the author interviewed farmers as 
to the number of quail coveys and pheasants on their farms. Because 
the county contains small farms, averaging 80 acres, and bkecause most 
farmers there are active hunters, the author believes that a rough 
but fairly accurate measurement was obtained. On 10,619 ncres, i87 
quail coveys were reported, about one covey per 57 acres. Undoubtsd- 
ly some coveys were reported more than once and some coveys unre- 
ported. Inasmuch as 10 birds per covey is a conservative average in 
that locality, the probable population in the winter cf 137-38 was 
about one quail per 6 acres. 
Despite heavy nesting losses in mowed areus, Cz 
Bd Tne tala of 1958, asin the autumn sot 1957, 
quail. This is especially remarkable in view of the disas S 
winter of 1955-56 which, according to apparently reliable eae 
reduced bobwhites to ©. relatively low population isay aglale} oye halieayec 
Undoubtedly bhe rapid recovery was due in large part to successfull 
nesting anvapple orchords with uncut cover crops, red [clover fields 
many Of <them unmolested until after athena bime., .tencerowsi, an 
rasphoerry ond dewberry patches. 
RING-NECKED PHEASANT 
According to Mra;Robert Meyer, a lifelong resident and 
hunter in Calhoun County, the first ring-necked pheasants, a dozen 
birds, were reledsed there about 1915. \Liberations of pheasants by 
the State Department of Conservation between 1928 and 1927 amounted 
to'688 birds; the largest number released in any one year was 158 in 
1936. 
There was in 1938 a density of approximately one pheasant 
per 40°d¢eres.) This figure is based ‘on a)réeportéd 251, birds :on.10,025 
acres covering 55 farms. The number is surprisingly high in view of 
the fact that in Calhoun County the pheasant is reaching tne southern 
extremity of its range and that much of the land there is not devoted 
to grain crops. 
