112 Game Survey of the North Central States 



this was a typical behavior observed during several attempts to establish pheasants, 

 rather than the behavior of the 1907 attempt only. 



His letter also states that a club at Springfield liberated 600 pheasants a 

 few years previous. 



"For a year we felt success . . . but I am unable to locate a bird in 

 Green County." 



The letter states that $6,000 was spent, and that several pair were sent to 

 north Missouri with like results. 



Curtis Rollins, of Columbia, Boone County (north central), Missouri, de- 

 scribes a small plant in 1917 which suddenly disappeared in the middle of Octo- 

 ber. 



Colony Failure. Senator Nicolas Cave, of Fulton, Callaway County (cen- 

 tral), Missouri, told me about two plantings of Hungarians made about 1911. 

 One failed, but the other has persisted ever since as a small colony of four covies. 

 His brother saw a pair with six young in 1929. There is some doubt about the 

 identity of this colony of birds, since the sportsmen of that part of Missouri are 

 not familiar with Hungarians, and time was lacking to run down this question 

 of identity personally during the survey. The date, however, checks with that of 

 the heaviest State plantings in Missouri, and Senator Cave remembers other plants 

 made all over Callaway County at the same time, all of which failed. 



A colony of pheasants is said to have resulted from a planting made in 

 1904 in Carroll County, Missouri. This colony showed a considerable spread, but 

 disappeared in 1911. 



It seems apparent that colony failure is usually simply an extra long strag- 

 gling failure. Some of the long periods of straggling in Indiana Hungarians 

 already described may be interpreted as colony failure. Colonies often survive for 

 very long periods. There is said to have been one in southeastern Maine for 

 many years. 



Artificial Establishment. The coarse hatching on Map 10 represents a 

 puzzling behavior of pheasant plants which is too favorable to be construed as 

 failure, but which clearly does not represent full success. On the bottoms of the 

 lower reaches of the Illinois River, for instance, many observers agreed that 

 pheasants were common, or even abundant, until the flood of 1926 drowned 

 them out. They are much less common now. These observers ascribe the de- 

 crease to the flood, yet the established pheasant range farther north also has floo'ds, 

 which result in no more than a temporary reduction of pheasant populations. 



On the central Illinois uplands there are numerous local colonies, which 

 seem to be established, but which do not spread. Reports of plants which dis- 

 appeared were almost as numerous as reports of plants which persist. Nowhere in 

 central Illinois could I find evidence of dense, aggressive pheasant populations, 

 able to withstand those constant buffetings of circumstance which any game bird 

 successfully outlives on its established or native range. 



