186 



Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 



Vol. 27, Art. 2 



available at the time. Perhaps it is also 

 appropriate to mention the paper by W. 

 K. Loucks (1804) on the prothonotary 

 warbler. While the paper is unfortu- 

 nately more subjective than objective, it 

 constitutes a colorful record of the find- 

 ings of a talented observer. 



The participation of the Natural His- 

 tory Survey stalif in the effort to obtain 

 legal protection for all hawks and owls in 

 Illinois merits attention. At the urging 

 of Dr. David H. Thompson, Director 

 Ralph Bradford of the Illinois Depart- 

 ment of Conservation sought and obtained 

 legislation, effective July 1, 1929, to pro- 

 tect all hawks and owls except the great 

 horned owl, the goshawk, sharp-shinned 

 hawk, Cooper's hawk, duck hawk, and 

 pigeon hawk. 



Members of the Natural History Sur- 

 \ey staff continued to advocate protection 

 of hawks and owls, and, effective July 1, 

 1941, protection was obtained for all but 

 the great horned owl. This condition pre- 

 vailed until July 1, 1947, when, for some 

 unexplained reason, the Cooper's and 

 sharp-shinned hawks were removed from 

 the protected list. In 1956 and 1957 a 

 new effort, spearheaded by Elton Fawks, 

 representing the Illinois Audubon Soci- 

 ety, was made to obtain protection for all 

 hawks and owls. I presented a paper at 

 the annual meeting of the Natural Re- 

 sources Council of Illinois on October 20, 

 1956; this paper has been credited with 

 having much to do with winning the sup- 

 port of the Council and member clubs for 

 the needed legislation (Fawks 1957:1). 

 I read a second paper at the annual meet- 

 ing of the Illinois Audubon Society in 

 Rockford on May 18, 1957, at the time 

 the bill was before the legislature (Bay- 

 less 1957:3), and I made an appeal for 

 further support in the official publication 

 of the Illinois Federation of Sportsmen's 

 Clubs (Scott 1957). Dr. Richard R. 

 Graber assisted this effort by analyzing 

 data on hawk and owl numbers reported 

 in the Christmas counts of the Illinois 

 Audubon Society for the past 50 years 

 and by demonstrating that some species 

 had declined in numbers and that there 

 was no evidence of need for measures de- 

 signed to reduce hawk and owl popula- 

 tions. The bill proposed for the protec- 

 tion of hawks and owls, House Bill No. 



1063, included protection also for the 

 crow, blue jay, cowbird, and grackle by 

 the time it had passed the General As- 

 sembly, June 27, 1957, and was signed 

 into law by Governor William G. Strat- 

 ton, July 8, 1957 (Illinois General As- 

 sembly '1957:1937-8). The bill pro- 

 vided for amending Section 21 of the 

 Game Code to define all hawks and owls I 

 as protected species but, as a consequence ■ 

 of an oversight. Section 36 of the Code 

 was not amended to include the Cooper's J 

 hawk, the sharp-shinned hawk, and the ^ 

 great horned owl among the hawks and 

 owls which were unlawful to have in pos- 

 session at any time. 



The Prairie Chicken. — If the Illi- 

 nois farmer of the 1860's had taken time 

 from his backbreaking work to sit down 

 and figure out the cause of the enormous 

 populations of prairie chickens which he 

 alternately cursed and blessed, perhaps he 

 would have seen that he had just com- 

 pleted a gigantic habitat development 

 project for upland game birds. He had 

 extended the range of the chicken by clear- 

 ing the timberland, and he had provided 

 thousands of food patches by establishing 

 grainfields. 



From these high populations, the prai- 

 rie chickens declined in numbers with the 

 gradual increase in grain farming and the 

 accompanying reduction of grassland. 

 The hunting season on prairie chickens 

 was closed in 1903 and was not opened 

 again until 1911. The relaxation of hunt- 

 ing regulations at this time undoubtedly 

 followed an increase in the population, 

 probablv associated with "The Indiana 

 'Comeback' of 1912" (Leopold 1931: 

 172). Contemporary data for Illinois 

 had apparently not been called to Leo- 

 pold's attention because Forbes (1912^: 

 47-8), reported that 



prairie-hens — thanks to our protective laws — 

 are now to be seen in at least seventy-four 

 counties, so abundantly in some that farmers 

 are beginning to protest against their further 

 increase because of the amount of grain 

 which they devour. 



The records on which this statement is 

 based remain in the files of the Illinois 

 Natural History Survey. Re-examination 

 of them brings out the conservativeness 

 of Forbes, for they indicate that the re- 

 porting observers had found a few prairie 



