
The number of questionnaires mailed and the number returned 
are shown in the following table: 
No. of Hunters 
Receiving No. of Hunters Per Cent 
yuestionnaires Responding Responding 
Fu : 1° 0 50 19 Ran 19 9-60 19 ate 19 9-60 19 oe BO 
Atlantic* 13,626 13,093 9,256 94306 6709 Flood 
Mississippi*® 26,857 17,097 18,594 11,902 69c2 69.6 
Central 5 9 610 6 2598 39 647 4,550 656 0 69. O 
Pacific 21298 tps ne® 6,881 8.396 gece 7io4 
Total 554493 0 350937 34,15 9.2 706 
“Beginning with the 1957-58 season, the sample size was increased 
for certain States, who then carried part of the expense by cost 
contracts. Contracts for this additional sampling were in effect 
with 16 States in the Atlantic and Mississippi Flyways during the 
1959-60 season. 
Data in the tables of this report have been adjusted to allow 
for biases that tended to exaggerate the estimates of hunting activity 
and kill.t Species composition of the kill is accepted as reported. 
Hunters recorded their hunting trips and bag of ducks on a 
calendar on the questionnaire. For each Flyway, the hunting and 
kill data were grouped in six successive periods. Tuese periods 
varied in length, as shown in column 2 of Tables 6, 9, 12 and 15, 
because season length varied among groups of States. Hunting 
activity in these tables was derived as follows: the number of 
hunters who reported one or more trips in a given period was 
divided by the sum of these numbers for the six periods. This gave 
the percentage of the total season's activity that took place in 
each period. This percentage then was divided by the number of 
days in the period to give the daily rates shown. 
lthese errors and methods for making the corrections are partially 
described in the publications listed below. A mimeographed descrip~ 
tion of methods is available on request. 
Atwood, E. Le Validity of Mail Survey Data on Bagged Waterfowl. 
Journal of Wildlife Management, 20 (1): 1-16. January 1956. 
Atwood, E. Le A Procedure for Removing the Effect of Response 
Bias Errors from Waterfowl questionnaire Responses. Biometrics, 
14 (1): 132 March 1958. 
