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MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
Glen C. Sanderson and Helen C. Schultz, Editors 
Urbana, Illinois October, 1 967 Vol. 10, No. 10 
1. Pheasant Populat ions and Land Use S. L. Etter 
The number of juvenile pheasants, of both sexes, per adult hen in fall 
has been used as an index of production on the Sibley Study Area since 1962. 
These indices have been obtained f'-om the sex and age ratios of pheasants 
trapped by night1ighting during October and early November. An estimate of 
this index can be obtained by multiplying the percentage of adult hens with 
broods, observed along standardized roadside transects in August, times the 
mean number of chicks in broods judged to be completely counted. The cal¬ 
culated numbers of juvenMes per adult hen were 5-2, 3-2, 3*1; 3-8, and 3-6 
in 1962, 1 963 7 1964, 1965; and 1 966 , respectively. The ratios obtained from 
the trapped samples for the same years were 5*0, 3-4, 3-0, 2-9; and 3-8 
juveniles per adult hen. 
Using the calculated sex and age ratios as expected values, Chi-square 
analysis resulted in a significant difference only in 1965--apparent1y the 
result of small sample sizes for both the calculated and observed ratios. 
In view of the close agreement of the calculated and observed ratios in the 
other 4 years, it appears that adequate estimates of this index of pheasant 
production can be calculated for situations where the trapping of large 
numbers of pheasants is not feasible. 
2. Manipulation of Pheasant Habitat G. B. Joselyn 
It is desirable to compare pheasant nest establishment on seeded road¬ 
side plots with that occurring on "typical" unseeded roadsides on the study 
area. Because most farm operators usually mow roadsides several times each 
summer, managed control roadside plots (which remain unmowed until late 
summer) are not representative of other roadsides on the study area. There¬ 
fore, additional roadside segments on the study area were picked at random 
and searched for pheasant nests each summer from 1963 through 1967- 
For the 5 years, pheasant nest density on seeded plots (2-9 nests per 
acre) was more than double the density of nests on all (mowed and unmowed 
combined) unmanaged control plots (1-3 nests per acre). Seeded plots had 
between 1.0 and 2.1 more nests per acre during each of the 5 years. Nest 
density on seeded plots was triple that on unmanaged plots which were mowed 
^ (1.0 nest per acre), but only about one-third higher than the density on 
unmanaged control roadsides which were unmowed (2.0 nests per acre\. 
