54 Game Survey of the North Central States 



All bag counts are open to the possible error that one sex is more likely to 

 be killed or easier to hit than the other, and in a few cases there is doubtless a de- 

 liberate attempt to kill males in preference to females. Stoddard's trapping rec- 

 ords eliminate this source of error. Of 1,700 quail trapped during two springs 

 in Georgia in two areas, the record shows from 1 to 3 per cent more cocks than 

 the bag count from the same area during the preceding fall. In other words, bag 

 counts show a lesser percentage of cocks than actually exist on the ground. 



Table 13, interpreted in the light of this information indicates that during 

 1929 and 1930 there was a 35 per cent excess of cocks in the aggregate of the 

 21 localities. 



The individual samples, however, indicate that local conditions may depart 

 considerably from the aggregate or average condition, and in both directions. 



None of the evidence here presented is considered to either prove or disprove 

 the alleged disturbed sex ratios in the north central region. Much more extensive 

 bag counts are required covering several years. As in Georgia, these should fur- 

 thermore be checked against trapping records before a final conclusion is reached. 



Alleged Inbreeding. It is widely believed by sportsmen, throughout this 

 region as well as elsewhere, that if quail covies are not dispersed annually by 

 shooting, they inbreed and deteriorate in size, vigor, and abundance. 



That shooting stimulates dispersal is probably a fact. 



That dispersal depends on shooting is not a fact in Georgia, and probably 

 not in this region. Stoddard proved by banding thousands of birds in hundreds 

 of covies that shuffling of individual birds between covies begins as soon as the 

 chicks are hatched, and continues throughout the closed as well as the open season. 

 Covies with young of two or more sizes arise not from two successive broods from 

 the same pair, as many sportsmen believe, but from this automatic shuffling be- 

 tween the broods of different pairs. The indications are (see preceding discussion 

 of quail movements) that the natural dispersal is greater in the north central 

 region than in Georgia. 



That quail would deteriorate, even if natural dispersal were absent, is im- 

 probable. Domestic species, do not do so, except where similar genetic weak- 

 nesses exist in both parents. Wild species have not been tested, but the laws of 

 inheritance as now understood would indicate less, rather than more, damage from 

 inbreeding in wild species than in domestic, because they represent purer strains 

 from which the tendency toward undesirable variations has been weeded out by 

 competition. 



In short, there is not a shred of real evidence that quail inbreed if unshot, 

 or that it would hurt them if they did. Isolated covies on the northern edge of 

 the range might not have a chance to mix with others and thus inbreed, but these 

 border birds (except where diluted with or supplanted by Mexican stock as in 

 New England) are traditionally large and vigorous. 



The belief in damage from inbreeding is so widely entertained, however, and 

 management policies throughout the world are so often premised upon it, that its 



