feel that the failure of recovery of the sharptail 

 in western Montana is due almost entirely to the 

 degeneration of its habitat. Much of the area 

 formerly occupied by sharptails in western Mon- 

 tana is now covered with cheat grass which can- 

 not possibly support the birds. 



The sage grouse is recovering its numbers 

 in many parts of the state, though in most areas 

 its recovery is slower than that of the sharptail. 

 We shall point out later why this is so. Many 

 regions of the state seem to show the bird remain- 

 ing stationary and there are many areas where 

 the birds became extinct during the drought and 

 have not yet returned. 



Blue grouse in general are becoming more 

 common, though the rate of increase is not rapid. 

 Ruffed grouse are apparently making more rapid 

 recovery of their numbers, while Franklin's grouse 

 apparently are steadily becoming rarer. 



Brood County Studies: 



In any study on game birds it is of para- 

 mount importance to determine the rate of in- 

 crease. This is best done by counting the numbers 

 of young in the broods of the various species. 

 Accordingly, whenever a brood of young birds 



was encountered, special effort was made to 

 count the number. The results of our brood count 

 figures of 1942 are summarized as follows: 



Number Range 



of complete in number Ave. No. 

 SPECIES broods counted of young 1 of young 



Sage Grouse 28 4-10 5.9 



Sharptail 8 3-14 9.4 



Blue Grouse 83 1-9 2.9 



Ruffed Grouse 22 1-5 3.1 



Franklin's Grouse .... 22 1-6 3.5 



Hungarian Partridge 32 1-19 7.7 



Chinese Pheasant .... 22 1-10 5.8 



These figures need some explanation. It is 

 well known that the number of young birds in a 

 brood gradually decreases during the summer 

 due to predators, disease, and accidents. There- 

 fore the number of young per brood in any species 

 would be much higher during June than it would 

 during August. It is necessary, then, for us to 

 indicate when our counts were taken. All of the 

 sharptail broods were taken from very young 

 birds before they had been greatly reduced by 

 nautral causes. Our counts on sage grouse were 

 (Please turn to page 96) 



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