118 Game Survey of the North Central States 



The managed Hungarian populations of England, however, are just about as 

 dense as our best quail populations, and apparently subject to about the same 

 saturation point. 



Some of the items in the table giving populations on the same tract through 

 a period of years, and much other evidence gathered during the survey, but too 

 voluminous to publish, indicate that Hungarians fluctuate more between years 

 than quail. This, too, is borne out by experience in England. In eastern Europe, 

 however, the bird is said to be very stable as between ordinary years. 



Sex Ratios. The pheasant is a highly polygamous bird, corresponding to 

 the deer in mammals. For this reason it is highly important to know the sex 

 ratio normal for wild unshot populations, and the extent to which this is dis- 

 turbed, beneficially or otherwise, by the present laws, which usually permit the 

 killing of cocks only. Cock laws, like buck laws, are undoubtedly beneficial with- 

 in certain limits. It is important to determine what those limits are, and whether 

 there is any danger of passing them. Pennsylvania's recent experience with deer 

 should be ample proof of this need for facts. 



Unfortunately only one of the north central States (Minnesota) requires a 

 report of the pheasant kill, while none of the States have done any work on sex 

 ratios in the wild. 



Valuable and convincing sex-counts have been made, however, by Oscar 

 Johnson, State game warden of the adjacent State of South Dakota. Twelve 

 thousand wild birds were captured by "shining" in Clark, Beadle, Spink, Hand, 

 and Faulk Counties during the winter of 1929-30. These were shipped for 

 replanting in standardized unit lots of 15 hens and 5 cocks each. Mr. Johnson 

 says that no surpluses of either sex were encountered in currently making up 

 these unit shipments. Unless, therefore, the process of "shining" caught the 

 sexes in a different ratio from that existing on the range, the ratio on the range 

 must have been very close to 3 hens:l cock during the winter of 1929-30. 

 This was after the 1929 hunting season had reduced the percentage of cocks. 

 (During 1929 the bag limit was five pheasants, of which not to exceed one might 

 be a hen.) 



Ten thousand wild pheasants were likewise captured in the same way for the 

 same purpose during the winter of 1926-27. The ratio ran 6 to 7 hens:l cock, 

 after a hunting season which allowed a limit of seven pheasants, of which 

 not to exceed two might be hens. The fall of 1926 was the first time since the 

 opening of the season on pheasants in 1919 in which the regulations permitted 

 taking any hens. 



The method of capture in both years was to "shine" the birds on the roost- 

 ing grounds at night with auto headlights. Mr. Johnson says his men did not 

 discriminate between sexes in picking up the "shined" birds during the 1929-30 

 operations. In 192627, however, his men experienced difficulty in securing 

 the desired proportion of cocks, so that hens were repeatedly passed up. 



