
three groups of States are shown in table 7. In 1959, the northern 
group had a mean recovery rate of 10.2 percent, compared with 5.3 
percent for the middle group, and 4.6 percent for the southern group. 
Similarly, in 1960, the mean recovery rate was 9.2 percent in the 
northern group, 6.9 percent in the middle group, and 4.5 percent in 
the southern group. Apparently, birds banded in the northern States 
with the earliest opening dates are subjected to greater shooting 
pressure than those in the States further south with later opening 
dates. 
Differences Between Age Groups in the Recovery Rate 
Generally, the direct recovery rate of birds banded as immatures 
was greater than that of adults. A measure of the extent to which 
immature birds are more likely to be shot than adults is needed to 
interpret age ratios in the hunting kill. Since wood duck age ratios 
in the hunting kill were measured in the 1959 and 1960 seasons in the 
Mississippi Flyway, and in the 1960 season in the Atlantic Flyway, 
table 5 was prepared to provide an estimate of the relative recovery 
rates. Recovery rates were calculated from the combined data for 1958 
(New York and Vermont only), 1959 and 1960 in the major banding States; 
data for each State were weighted equally. The mean direct recovery 
rate was 5.5 percent for adults and 7.7 percent for immatures, indica- 
ting that immatures were 1.4 times more likely to be recovered than 
adults. . 
Differences Between Harvest Areas in Relative Recovery Rates 
Differences between harvest areas in relative recovery rates are 
presented in table 6, Data from Vermont and Wisconsin, the States 
where the most birds were banded, are used to show differences in the 
relative recovery rate between northern and southern harvest areas. 
Bandings in Wisconsin indicated a greater relative recovery rate in 
northern States (1.8) than in southern States (1.3), while bandings 
in Vermont suggested a greater relative recovery rate in southern States 
(1.4) than in northern States (1.2). Sample sizes are too small for 
these estimates to be very precise. Nevertheless, these seemingly 
inconsistent findings agree with age ratios observed in the duck wing 
collection. In both the 1959 and 1960 hunting seasons, wood duck 
age ratios determined from wings collected in the Mississippi Flyway 
were higher in northern States than in the South (Geis and Carney, . 
1961), In contrast, age ratios from wings collected in the Atlantic 
Flyway in 1960 were lower in northern States than in the South (Geis 
and Carney, 1961), 
