when nesting and rearing of the young occur, namely from the 

 middle of May until the middle of July. 



Plumages of the Greater Prairie Chicken 

 Development of Plumage in the Young 



Little is known of the details of the molt in prairie chickens, 

 because only in rare instances have prairie chickens been suc- 

 cessfully reared in captivity whereby birds of known age were avail- 

 able for study. Lehmann ( 1941 : 16 ) gives an account of the growth 

 of the Attwater prairie chicken based on observations of wild birds. 



Dwight (1900:164) observed that the postjuvenal molt in prairie 

 chickens is complete except for the two outermost primaries. The 

 condition of these two primaries was used by Ammann (1944) in 

 diflFerentiating between birds of the year and adults in autumn 

 populations. Petrides and Nestler (1943 and 1952) developed 

 techniques for aging young bobwhites by noting the condition of 

 the molt of the remiges. This technique is a valuable tool in de- 

 termining the time of the major hatch in wild birds — an important 

 determination in the study of population dynamics. 



Twenty-five eggs of the greater prairie chicken, salvaged from 

 nests 1, 3 and 4, were placed in an incubator at 103° F. Seventeen 

 chicks hatched from these eggs and were placed in an electrically 

 heated brooder. The newly hatched chicks fed readily on insects, 

 including mealworms, and some learned to eat commercial chick 

 feed. Others did not learn to eat, and seven died by the fourth day 

 after hatching. Moistened chick mash and lettuce leaves were the 

 staple foods of those that survived after the fourth day. 



The legs and joints of some birds that survived after the fourth 

 day became swollen (Plate 2, Figure d). In some individuals the 

 use of one leg was lost. After the fourth day, birds were sacrificed 

 at intervals to the 29th day. In the meantime, two chicks taken 

 from nest number 5 were placed in the brooder, and later were 

 reared. One died at the age of 18 weeks and the other one was 

 released at the point of capture at the age of 20 weeks. 



Insofar as possible these captive birds were examined once each 

 week, but after the twelfth week it was not possible to handle them 

 without undue risk of injury to them. In each examination, the 

 length of each remex was taken by placing the end of a rule against 

 the insertion of the feather in the skin and flattening the feather 

 against the rule. Supplementary information was obtained from 

 seven wild-taken juvenal greater prairie chickens. The condition 



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