MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
V. 3 
) 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
T. G. Scott, Editor 
Urbana, Illinois 
February 1^60 
Vol. 3, No. 2 
W-30-R-13 R. F. Labisky 
A final analysis indicates that 52.5 per cent of the cocks were removed 
from the pheasant population on the Sibley area by hunters during the 1959 hunting 
season. The estimate was based on the change between the preseason sex ratio of 
44.4 per cent cocks, obtained from the night-light trapping of 183 pheasants during 
October and early November, 1959, and the post-season ratio of 21„1 per cent cocks, 
obtained from roadside counts of 4,642 birds during January and February, I960. 
The harvest of cocks on the Sibley area during previous hunting seasons was 59.4, 
12.4, and 44.0 per cent in 1956, 1957, and 1958, respectively. 
W-42-R-9 R. D. Lord, Jr. 
Analysis of bag-check data from the Robert Alierton Park 4-H study area 
indicates that hunters spent about the same amount of time to bag a rabbit this 
year as they did last year. The trend in the hunting statistics may be seen in 
the following table: 
Season 
Fall 
Popu¬ 
lation 
Spring 
Popula¬ 
tion 
Rabbits 
Bagged 
Per 
Fall 
Crop 
Cent of 
Winter 
Deaths 
Gun- 
Hours 
Hours Per 
Rabbit 
1956-57 
333 
47 
113 
33,9 
39.5 
154 
1.36 
1957-58 
259 
31 
92 
35,5 
40.4 
269 
2.92 
1958-59 
324 
132 
109 
33.6 
56.8 
365 
3.35 
1959-60 
239 
56 
95 
39.7 
51.9 
323 
3.40 
Analysis 
of 4 years of 
data on cottontails supplied 
with feed 
in automatic 
feeders shows that, although the rabbits ate considerable quantities of the food, 
neither their average weight nor winter mortality were importantly affected. 
