Pheasants and Hungarians 121 



they regularly resort to buds will probably determine their ultimate northern 

 boundary. 



William Otto, of Watertown, Wisconsin, fed four covies of Hungarians 

 through the killing winter of 1928-29, and found that 29 of the original 34 

 birds, or 85 per cent survived. He estimates the survival of unfed covies as 50 

 per cent. 



Various observers in Racine and Jefferson Counties, Wisconsin believe that 

 Hungarians resorted to dragged gravel roads for grit during the heavy snows of 

 1928-29. 



Do Exotics Need Cover? There is a fallacious impression in many parts 

 of this region that while native game needs generous coverts, the pheasant "has 

 adapted himself to civilization through thousands of years in China" and can get 

 along on bare fields. 



It is important that this fallacy be refuted. It tends to prevent sportsmen 

 from squarely facing the covert- restoration problem. 



The pheasant does not get along on bare fields in China. A careful reading 

 of Beebe's Monograph (1922) will show that typical Asiatic pheasant country 

 has dense reed-beds along all the rivers (equivalent to our cat-tail marshes), 

 while every paddy-field is checkered with narrow lines of cover on the little 

 ridges used to hold irrigation water. When the reeds are cut in December, the 

 birds leave the fields and take to the semi-timbered hills. 



It is true that the pheasant uses a different kind of cover, that is, he uses 

 swamps at all seasons, whereas quail use them only in winter. He may persist 

 on standing corn and grassy swales, whereas quail ordinarily requires brush as 

 well as grass and grain. It is certainly true that the pheasant, having a longer 

 cruising radius than quail, will go further for cover; that is, a given covert will 

 serve a wider area. But a devegetated country is equally hopeless for all game, 

 especially shootable game. Pheasants while still fully protected may live on 

 fairly bare country, but they will disappear from it under shooting unless it con- 

 tains tangles from which they cannot be raised by dogs, or cornfields so large 

 that they can escape by running. 



Hungarians come nearer being able to get along without cover than pheasants 

 or quail. Apparently they need neither brush nor woodland, but during snow they 

 do require some heavy grass, weeds, or standing corn. This need is easily sup- 

 plied by leaving patches of cover uncut. As in the case of pheasants, however, 

 there is probably a difference between the minimum of cover which will suffice 

 under complete protection, and that necessary to enable the birds to stand up under 

 shooting. The unsatisfactory resistance to shooting in Wisconsin and most of 

 Ohio, and their shrinkage without shooting in parts of Wisconsin and central 

 Indiana, may be due to deficient cover or food. In Waukesha County, Wiscon- 

 sin, the deficiency of both cover and food, due to the increase in siloing of corn, 

 is the most probable reason for the recent decrease under complete protection. 



