December, 1958 



Scott: Wii.Di.iFii Research 



191 



revealed for the Hrst time. The breed- 

 ing range, migration routes, wintering 

 grounds, and populations were discussed 

 for each flyway population. Later, the 

 South Atlantic Flyway population was 

 treated in greater detail (Hanson (S: Grif- 

 fith 1952). Observations on the relation 

 of hunting losses to the age structure of 

 the population wintering at the Horse- 

 shoe Lake Game Refuge proved especially 

 useful. The heavy kills of immature 

 geese in the first half of the 1940's not 

 only altered the age composition of the 

 flock but reduced the average longevity of 

 these geese as shown by life survival 

 indices, the first constructed for a species 

 of waterfowl (Hanson iSc Smith 1950: 

 172-88). A recent 3-year study of the 

 kills of Canada geese by the natives of 

 the Hudson- James Bay region has estab- 

 lished the location and size of these 

 hunting losses with exactness (Hanson (S: 

 Currie 1957). 



The Canada geese on the Horseshoe 

 Lake Game Refuge provide a unique op- 

 portunity for study of behavior. The 

 adult males of the largest families usually 

 dominate males leading smaller families, 

 and the social rank of the adult female 

 is determined by that of her mate (Han- 

 son 1953^). The conception "that the 

 small goose flock is usually a family and 

 that larger flocks are frequently multiples 

 of families rather than mere aggregations 

 of individuals . . ." also became apparent 

 in observations made at the Horseshoe 

 Lake Game Refuge (Elder & Elder 

 1949:139). 



Diseases and parasites of Canada geese 

 have been investigated in anticipation of 

 epizootics among geese crowding into 

 winter refuges. Blood protozoa (Levine 

 & Hanson 1953) and microfilaria (Han- 

 son, Levine, & Kantor 1956; Hanson 

 1956) have been surveyed. The pre\a- 

 lence of helminths in relation to age and 

 the incidence of Leucocytozoon infection 

 in immature geese are currently under 

 study. Dr. Norman D. Levine (1953) 

 made a valuable review of the literature 

 on coccidia in the avian orders Galli- 

 formes, Anseriformes, and Charadri- 

 iformes. Coccidial infection was initially 

 investigated in the flock at the Horseshoe 

 Lake Game Refuge by Levine (1952), 

 and the coccidia of North American wild 



geese and swans were subsequently con- 

 sidered by Hanson, Levine, & Ivens 

 (1957). Host specificity of some species 

 of coccidia was shown, and certain coc- 

 cidia seemed restricted to one flyway popu- 

 lation. Thus, coccidia appeared to offer 

 promise as biological tracers for confirm- 

 ing the distribution of flyway populations 

 indicated earlier bv band recoveries 

 (Hanson & Smith 1950:74-9). 



Ducks. — The early settler found mul- 

 titudes of ducks in Illinois, not only 

 along major streams, but also on the 

 prairie sloughs. The vast numbers of 

 ducks migrating through the bottomlands 

 of the Illinois River valley made this 

 vallev a famous shooting ground as far 

 back' as the 1880's. Indeed, in 1886, a 

 group of businessmen from the Peoria 

 area founded the Duck Island Preserve, 

 probabl\' the first hunting club in the 

 state. 



Prior to 1900 the Illinois River and 

 its connecting waters were in a near 

 pristine condition. Sloughs and lakes con- 

 tained an abundance of aquatic vegeta- 

 tion (Kofoid 1903), which provided food 

 for ducks; other food was furnished by 

 pecan nuts and pin oak acorns which be- 

 came available when high water flooded 

 the low-lying, timbered bottoms. In 

 January of 1900 the Chicago Sanitary 

 and Ship Canal was opened, greatly in- 

 creasing earlier diversion of water from 

 Lake Michigan (Mulvihill 6: Cornish 

 1930:53). This increased diversion re- 

 sulted in water levels which were high 

 enough to destroy extensive tracts of bot- 

 tomland timber, including most of the 

 pecans and pin oaks, in the Illinois River 

 valley. 



During the early 1900's not only were 

 the tracts of mast-producing trees, so im- 

 portant as sources of food for mallards, 

 lost to the ducks, but drainage destroyed 

 manv other important feeding grounds. 

 Between 1900 and 1922, almost 200,000 

 of 400,000 acres in the flood plain of the 

 Illinois River vallev were leveed and 

 drained ( Mulvihill' .Sc Cornish 1930). 

 The number of ducks in the lower flood 

 plain area and shooting success declined 

 when the mast-producing trees were lost. 

 Then the practice of feeding waterfowl 

 was begun at some duck hunting clubs in 

 the early 1900's, was prohibited by state 



