170 



Game Survey of the North Central States 



Slashings as Chicken Range. Map 14 shows the dates of arrival of 

 chickens at various points in the Forest Belt. Evidently chickens invaded this 

 territory, not in concentric waves with a solid front (such as Hungarian part- 

 ridge show in their invasion of Michigan and Wisconsin, Map 11), but after 

 the manner of moths invading a carpet, in a multitude of small discontinuous 

 patches gradually spreading from many foci. Thus also did axe, fire, and plow 

 invade the forest, and it is not surprising that the cause should display the same 

 geographic pattern as the effect. 



The Hungarian, on the other hand, is invading, from a single focus, a large 

 continuous environment long fully prepared, hence the pattern of concentric waves. 



There is a dramatic element in the chicken's conquest of the north woods 

 which is of wider significance than the bird itself. It offers current proof that 

 within certain limits it is not civilization, but the manner in which civilization 

 uses the land, which determines the presence or absence of gallinaceous game. 

 It offers also a sad commentary on American forestry that this the heart of the 

 white pine forest should in a single generation have become the abode of the 

 prairie chicken. 



Sometimes, indeed, the metamorphosis has taken place in less time than a 

 generation. Hardwood logging in Price County, Wisconsin, has just ceased; 

 chickens of both species arrived about 1919, and by 1925 there was a high year 

 during which chickens were exceedingly abundant. At this moment, of course, 

 they are scarce but increasing. There has been only one chicken cycle here 

 before that there were no chickens to suffer a cycle. 



In northwestern Washburn County the reverse process, that is, the recapture 

 of the chicken range by forest, has already taken place. The Minong region, 

 after lumbering, was full of sharptails, but of late years the jack pines have come 

 in so thickly as to drive them out and re-establish the deer and ruffed grouse. 

 Much of the chicken range in the Forest Belt must eventually be lost in this way. 



Census. Three States have attempted a census of their prairie chickens by 

 compiling local estimates or counts made by game wardens or volunteer observers. 



TABLE 30. Prairie chicken census 



