Game Cycle 143 



particular year on Chart 7.. The extremes tend to cancel each other in a summation 

 of this sort, and the resulting graph should not be construed as representative 

 of any particular locality, or of the species in question for any one locality. These 

 three sections rather represent the "net balance" for the State as a whole for each 

 particular year, counting everything below normal as debits and everything above 

 normal as credits. 



In Section C no information was available on snowshoe rabbits back of 

 about 1913. Hence a section of Seton's Canadian snowshoe graph is inserted for 

 the period behind 1913 with his permission. (From his "Arctic Prairies," 1923, 

 Charles Scribners Sons.) 



Section D is a summation of all species similar to A, B, and C, for the 

 separate species. At the bottom of Section D the known occurrences of goshawks 

 and snowy owls are given by the symbols "O" and "G" respectively. 



Section E is an interpretation of Section D, showing the alternative choices 

 of what constitutes highs and lows, and at what point the choice begins to be in 

 doubt. 



Section F is a summary of the known status of ruffed grouse and pinnated 

 grouse in the more southerly States covered by the survey. Its purpose is to see 

 whether the southern States synchronize with the northern. 



Section G is an idealized 9-year cycle showing the probable relation be- 

 tween the most frequent condition (solid line) and the lag or departure from it 

 (dotted lines) . It also shows the probable effect on open and closed seasons 

 of the idealized or hypothetical cycle. 



Since Chart 8 was prepared, some old reports of the State game commis- 

 sioner have been found which check against Sections A and B as follows: 



Chart 8 Old Reports 



Ruffed Grouse Prairie Chicken Ruffed Grouse Prairie Chicken 



1916 .declining very scarce beginning to 



decline sharp decline 



1918 ereat increase increasing still declining at lowest 



1920 remarkable remarkable 



increase increase back to normal back to normal 



1924 .declining declining beginning to beginning to 



decline decline 



The two records agree except as to the date of the next to the last low, 

 which Chart 8 places in 1918 or 1919, while the old reports indicate it occurred 

 in 1916 and 1917. 



Chart 9: The numbers to the right of the vertical lines representing years 

 show the number of observers reporting the status of prairie chickens for that 

 year to be that indicated on the left margin of the chart. The numbers to the 

 left of the vertical lines show the number of observers reporting the status of 

 ruffed grouse to be that indicated on the left margin. 



The heavy black lines connect the most frequent status during each year 

 (except that a correction or "weighing" is made as explained at the bottom of the 



