§ 
Vo 1. 7, No. 1 
Page 3 
Prairie chickens proved to be more susceptible to trapping during August and 
September than later in the year (Table 2). During late summer, prairie chickens 
that were flushed at night usually alighted soon after flushing. During the 
winter, most of the prairie chickens which were flushed at night flew out of the 
field. Most catches were made after the initial flush. 
During the I 963 quail season, 139 hunters expended 437*5 gun-hours harvesting 
175 quail (2.5 hours per bird bagged) on the Wayne County conservation area. 
Similar statistics for the Marion County conservation area showed that 103 hunters 
harvested 170 quail in 410.0 gun-hours (2.4 hours per bird bagged). On the Bogota 
Area, which is a 16-square mile tract of prairie farmland in Jasper County, at 
least 57 quail were killed by hunters in 19 & 3 ; complete harvest data are not 
available for Bogota because hunting there is not controlled by the Illinois 
Department of Conservation as it is on the conservation areas. In 19&3.> juveniles 
comprised 82.7; 86.1, and 82.4 percent of the quail bagged on the Wayne County, 
Marion County and Jasper County (Bogota) areas, respectively. The high propor¬ 
tion of juveniles among the quail killed on each of these areas indicated excel¬ 
lent production in 1963* 
Other workers have reported that differential survival sometimes occurs be¬ 
tween the sexes of some species of animals, including the bobwhite. All of the 
10 adult quail harvested at Bogota were males. Yet on the Wayne and Marion County 
areas, 24 of the 51 adult quail shot by hunters were males, 27 females. These 
data tentatively suggest that the absence of females in the hunter-bag from the 
Bogota Area may be a result of unusually high rates of death of breeding females, 
caused by the stresses of nesting and brooding in prairie-farmland habitat. On 
the less cultivated Wayne and Marion County areas, sufficient habitat may exist 
to insure the survival of adult females to the fall or early winter. 
Table 1. Results of nightlighting for prairie chickens on the Bogota Study Area 
from September 1962 through October 1963* 
Cover type* 
Number 
of 
Acres** 
Number 
of 
Flushes 
Acres 
per 
Flush 
Number 
of 
Capturest 
Flushes 
per 
Capture 
Red Sr Ladino Clover 
413.8 
131 
3.2 
18 
5.3* 
Redtop 
365.2 
79 
4.6 
24 
3*3 
Timothy 
65.6 
4 
16,-4 
0 
0.0 
Wheat Stubble 
66.0 
0 
0.0 
0 
0.0 
Weed Stands 
83.3 
0 
0.0 
0 
0.0 
Lespedeza 
23.0 
7 
3.3 
1 
7.0 
Oat & Rye Stubble 
19.5 
0 
0.0 
0 
0.0 
Totals 
1,036.4 
221 
43 
Averages 
4.7 
5« 1 
* According to dominant species. 
** Each acre is counted as many times as it was nightlighted. 
t No attempt was made to capture the first 35 prairie chickens flushed. All 35 
were from red clover. 
* Adjusted to exclude flushes for which no attempts at capture were made. 
