The differences in the ringneck comparisons for Illinois and 
Missouri suggests the possibility that in States in which mallards 
make up a large part of the kill, some hunters may think of them 
as "ringneck mallards" and hence report them as ringnecks. 
Ae De Geis and Eo. Le Atwood (unpublished ms.) examined the 
recovery records on file at the Banding Office and compared the 
species composition reported by banders with the species compo- 
sition of duck returns reported by hunters (for which the hunter 
named the species). They found that the proportion of mallards 
was higher and the proportions of nearly all other species of 
ducks were lower in the reports from hunters than in the reports 
from the banders (Table 31). Gadwalls and ringnecks were among 
the species where the differences were greatest. Results from 
hunters' reports concerning species composition thus differed 
from the banders' reports in the same general way as results from 
the Mail Questionaire Survey differed from the wing collection. 
AGE RATIOS 
Age ratios in the kill are not the same as the age ratios in 
the population because immatures are more vulnerable to shooting than 
are adults, as will be discussed later. Age ratios in the kill can, 
however, be considered as indexes of the age composition of the 
population unless differential vulnerability varies greatly between 
yearSo 
Age ratios determined from the wing-collection data are shown 
in Table 32. The table shows both unweighted and weighted age ratios 
for each species for the entire Flyway. Weighted and unweighted age 
ratios usually were essentially the same. Weighted age ratios for 
black ducks and pintails, however, were substantially lower than the 
unweighted ratios. This difference resulted because the weighting 
reduced the influence of the high age ratios of these species in 
the northern Stateso 
Species Comparisons 
The best expression of the age composition of the kill in the 
Flyway as a whole is the weighted ratio in the right-hand colum of 
Table 32. These data indicate that the redhead, mallard, canvasback 
and pintail were the four species having the poorest production rate 
during the 1959 breeding season. 
Because the weighting procedure that was followed did not give 
southern States adequate weight, the weighted age ratios of those 
species taken in both the northern and the southern ends of the 
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