ABSTRACT 
Singing ground counts for 1960 from 40 routes west of the 
Appalachians and 166 routes east of this range were available for 
comparison with counts made on the same routes in 1959. While the 
measurements of change in the woodcock breeding index between years 
relate, properly speaking, only to these routes as selected by the 
cooperators, this is the best information we have on the breeding 
population of the area east of Wisconsin and north of Tennessee 
and South Carolina.* 
East of the Appalachians the sample data indicated a 
statistically significant decrease of 10 per cent, and it probably 
is safe to conclude that the true drop did not exceed 19 per cent. 
West of the Appalachians an average increase of 7 per cent was indicated, 
and 95 per cent confidence limits suggest that if a decrease did occur 
on the sample routes, it probably was not more than 13 per cent. For 
both areas combined, a decrease of 2 per cent was recorded on the 
206 routes sampled, with confidence limits of an increase of 9 per 
cent or a decrease of 12 per cent. There is no evidence of a 
disastrous population decrease in spite of the severe weather condi- 
tions of March 1960. 

* No comparative data were available from Indiana, Quebec, Rhode 
Island, Delaware or Virginia; and only one route in Minnesota 
and one in Wisconsin were covered both years. 
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