Duck Wing Collection, Southern Ontario, I960. 



During the fall of I960 field staff of the districts of Erie, Huron, 

 Simcoe, Lindsay, Tweed, and Keraptville which border on the Great Lakes 

 contacted sportsmen in the field to collect duck wings and asked duck 

 club members to save wings from their kill. 



This resulted in a collection of ^^98 wings from 2^ species of ducks. 

 In early January these were sent to Maple and on January 12th and 13th a 

 course in aging and sexing this material was given. We should like to 

 express here our appreciation to Dr. A. Geis and Mr. S. Carney of the 

 United States Fish and Wildlife Service who came to Ontario to give this 

 instruction to nineteen Lands and Forests staff, two from the Ontario 

 Agricultural College, Guelph, one from the Royal Ontario Museum of Zoology 

 and one from the Canadian Wildlife Service. 



The wings had not been placed in individual envelopes. Unfortunately 

 this resulted in some matting of the feathers and decomposition which 

 caused the rejection of an unfortunately high proportion of the specimens. 



Only a few of the collections from individual marshes represent 

 the kill from opening day while most represent a sample collected throughout 

 the season. 



The results of the age and sex and species determinations are presented 

 in Tables 1 to ^. 



Table No. 5 gives the age ratios for those species for which a sample 

 of more than 100 aged wings are available. 



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