Bobwhite 55 



validity should be subjected to scientific test. This will require dividing a homo- 

 geneous sample into two halves, and inbreeding one while outbreeding the other in 

 the same environment, for many generations. Some well-to-do sportsman could 

 build a lasting monument to himself by financing such a test in some competent 

 university. 



The cause of sport is injured by claiming for it benefits which may not exist. 

 Sport needs no defense if it maintains the game supply. No unsound arguments 

 will keep it alive if it does not. 



In spite of the universal fear of inbreeding, only one instance of actual action 

 to prevent it was encountered during the survey. On the Lyter preserve in Phelps 

 County, Missouri, annual trapping operations are carried out, and the cock birds 

 moved to locations as far as possible from the point where trapped. A decisive 

 increase has accompanied this practice, but so has winter feeding and very light 

 shooting. The cause of the increase may lie in these management measures, 

 rather than in the moving of cocks. 



Relation to Other Species. What related species of game birds can be 

 maintained on the same ground at the same time is an unanswered problem of 

 pressing importance. It is especially necessary to know whether the planting of 

 pheasants and Hungarians interferes with the maintenance of native species. 



In all probability the question is one of combined density of population, rather 

 than mere presence or absence of species. There is no reason to suspect an in- 

 herent antipathy between species which causes one to exclude the other, where 

 neither approaches the carrying capacity of the range. In support of this con- 

 jecture may be cited the fact that near Cottage Grove and Deerfield in eastern 

 Dane County, Wisconsin, there are farms containing quail, pinnated grouse, Hun- 

 garian partridge, and ringneck pheasant, each species being in an apparently thrifty 

 condition, but in moderate numbers. The same combination, but without the 

 prairie chickens, is found in southeastern Michigan. All four occur in St. Joseph 

 County, Indiana, but it is not known whether all occur on the same farm. The 

 same combination, but without the Hungarians, is found in the Kankakee marshes 

 of Indiana. Prairie chickens, pheasants, and Hungarians occur together without 

 visible signs of interference in the Chicago area, but quail are practically absent. 



In none of these instances, however, are all of the species abundant on the 

 same ground. They do not prove that if management or accident makes one spe- 

 cies abundant, that it will not hurt the others. Such proof must await the accumu- 

 lation of experience, and of much more life history information for all species 

 than now exists for any. 



Meanwhile, management must proceed according to the best light available. 

 The combined maximum density of two or more species, and its relation to the 

 separate maximum (or saturation point) for single species, has never been 

 measured. Table (f) of the Appendix gives estimates of relative abundance in a 

 few localities in Wisconsin, also estimates made by Yeatter (Institute Fellow, 

 University of Michigan), in parts of Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. 



