Vo 1. 6 > No. 3 
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(b) Soils of foreslopes contain a large amount of gravel (on gravel and 
black-top roads); and 
(c) Foreslopes are constructed to facilitate optimum drainage of the road¬ 
way while retaining the road-bed materials on the roadway. Alteration could cause 
drainage and erosion problems. 
3. Factors Inf 1 uenci.ng Pi str ibution and Abundance of Pheasants W. L. Anderson 
Three hundred sixty pheasants (121 cocks and 239 hens) were released on the 
Neoga area during March to augment existing population levels. The released pheas¬ 
ants included 88 wild hens captured from established populations in southeastern 
Champaign County, 208 game-farm reared Korean pheasants (81 cocks and 127 hens), 
and 64 game-farm reared Japanese green pheasants (40 cocks and 24 hens). The age 
ratio among the wild hens was 1.4 juveniles per adult. All the Korean and Japanese 
green pheasants were juvenile birds. The sex ratio among all of the introduced 
birds was 2.0 hens per cock. 
4. Rahbit Management W. R. Edwards, D. A. Casteel 
During late March a survey was begun to evaluate utilization of cover on land 
leased near Bogota to enhance production of prairie chickens, quails, and cotton¬ 
tails. The initial field work was done in the northwest quarter of Section 27, 
Smallwood Township, Jasper County. This study area (160 acres) contained an area 
of 40 acres in which were a 27 ” 2 cre field of red clover and a I3~acre field of tim¬ 
othy, both unharvested in 1962. These two fields provided an excellent basis for 
comparison of the use of clover and timothy by cottontails. 
The pellet count method was used to obtain an index to the relative use of 
various fields. Pellet counts were made in 917 randomly selected 2- X 2-foot quad¬ 
rats in 12 fields throughout the study area. The results of these counts are pre¬ 
sented In Table 1. 
Several interesting phenomena were obvious from the preliminary evaluation. It 
was apparent that the study area contained a very high cottontail population, and 
that the focus for this population was the field of clover, receiving more than 5 
times the use as did the timothy. I believe that this disparity in use resulted 
from differences in the density of the two cover types; the clover, being more open, 
allowed rabbits greater ease of movement. The portions of the timothy field most 
used were areas where there were openings in the cover or where the stand was much 
lass dense. 
Similar differences were apparent when utilization of clipped wheat stubble was 
compared with unclipped stubble. The clipped wheat stubble and annual weeds formed 
a dense matt that was little used by cottontails. The unclipped wheat stubble and 
weeds provided more open cover and had one of the higher rates of utilization. Use 
of winter wheat and soybean stubble was considerably higher (presumably being util¬ 
ized as feeding areas) in fields adjacent to the nesting cover than in similar crop 
types occurring farther away. 
It is apparent that, to achieve maximum densities of cottontails, extensive 
