4 CIRCULAR 9 6, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



steadily from the first, a fact justifying almost steady lengthening 

 of the open season and increase in the daily bag limit. The total 

 bag in 1926 was estimated at a million birds, and in 1927 at from 

 one and a half to two millions, a record that has scarcely been 

 approached in all our history by a single species of game bird in a 

 single State. 



The Hungarian, also known as the European, or gray, partridge 

 (Perdix perdix) (fig. 3), a later introduction, is showing the same 

 ability as the pheasant to occupy and hold territory and to increase 

 in numbers. These partridges are well established in various locali- 

 ties in the East and abound in the Northwest (fig. 4); 10 years 

 after their introduction in Okanogan County, Wash., they had fully 

 occupied the country for a radius of 150 miles, and on feeding 



m 









1 







HP^S 











glgfjHjIi 







JSMf ^. Vi 











~r^ 























mffMSP 











Figure 1. — Ring-necked pheasants 



grounds established after the shooting season, they gathered liter- 

 ally in thousands. The game warden of Okanogan County estab- 

 lished a feeding ground about 30 miles west of Tonasket, where on 

 160 acres he counted and estimated proportionally 8,000 Hungarian 

 partridges. In Alberta, where the partridge was first introduced 

 in 1908, an open season of 30 days with a daily bag limit of 5 

 birds was permitted in 1912; limits later were extended until in 

 1 927 the open season was 3 months and the bag limit 15 birds a day. 



The State game warden of Oregon asserts that the Chinese 

 pheasant and the Hungarian partridge produce probably 90 per 

 cent of the upland bird shooting in Oregon and bear promise of 

 doing likewise in many other States. 



The case of Eurasian v. American game birds is fully made out 

 in the experience with the pheasant and partridge in the Northwest. 

 The native birds had equal opportunity with the foreign ones to 

 respond to feeding and legal protection, yet with their advantage 

 of close adaptation to country and climate, and priority of occupa- 

 tion, they failed to make good. In fact, only a single native upland 



