Vol. 8, No. 4 
Page 2 
Weather permitting, two additional chemical defoliates, Ortho Paraquat and 
Ansar (cacodylic acid), will be tested in early May along a mile of roadside 
mile each) in southern Livingston County, 9 miles north of Sibley. Each of these 
defoliates is reputed to be more effective in eliminating bluegrass than the Ortho 
Diquat employed last September. 
On each j mile of roadside, the following two planting techniques will be 
employed: sod seeder, £ mile; aerifier followed by Brillion seeder, £ mile. The 
sod seeder plants grasses and legumes in established sod in rows of variable width 
(8" - 20"). It employs a rolling coulter to open the sod ahead of seeding "shoes." 
Aerifiers are used to expose the soil on bluegrass sod for fertilization or over¬ 
seeding. It is anticipated that this machine will expose enough soil after treat¬ 
ment with a chemical defoliate to allow seeding with a Brillion or hydroseeder. 
Additional seedings employing the above and other machines and various rates 
of chemical treatment are planned for late summer. 
3- Factors Inf1uencinq Distribution and Abundance of Pheasants W. L. Anderson 
At the inception of the gene pool experiment on the Neoga Study Area, there 
existed a need for a quantitative method of showing differences and similarities 
among the various strains of pheasants concerned in the study. With such a method, 
it was hoped that the progenitorship of pheasants reared on the area could be 
determined, thereby indicating the released strains most successful in perpetuating 
their genotypes under the environmental conditions at Neoga. As large numbers of 
birds were to be handled, it was decided that a few, relatively simple, morphological 
measurements which could be taken with speed and accuracy would be likely to reveal 
important relationships among the strains of pheasants. 
Measurements taken were: (1) length of closed wing, (2) length of exposed 
cu1 men, (3) width of maxilla at nostrils, (4) length of tarsus, (5) length of 
middle toe, (6) length of middle claw, and (7) length of middle toe and claw. 
Measurements were taken on almost all 2,662 pheasants released at Neoga during the 
four winters, 1959~60 through 1962—63» and on about 400 native birds captured by 
night1ighting or shot by hunters during the fall and winters of I 96 O- 6 I through 
1963-64. In the final evaluation, 15,636 measurements on released pheasants and 
2,678 on native birds were taken and included in the analyses. 
It was found that, within each sex and age group, means of wi1d — I 11inois birds 
tended to be larger than those of the other released strains of pheasants (Table 2). 
Next, in decreasing size, were wild-Kansas, Korean, California, and Japanese 
pheasants. There were several exceptions to this general trend; for instance, 
cocks and hens of Japanese origin had unusually long middle toes and claws, and 
California birds had unusually short ones. 
Comparative data on measurements of native pheasants and released birds suggest 
that birds hatched on the Neoga Area in I 960 , I 96 I, and 1963 were more closely 
related to wild-illinois pheasants, with respect to external morphology, than to 
the other strains of pheasants released on the area. Measurements of the native 
birds hatched in I 962 had similarities to those of both wild-illinois and wild- 
