
‘for many years. 
This survivel,is, in all probability,in spite of,rather than be- 
cause of, the fact that chickens are hunted. The strong survival is not 
surprising for the Lake region or northeastern region of Illinois be- 
cause that is a hummock swamp country similar to Wisconsin.It is very 
surprising that any chickens at all should survive in the region of 
Champaign County, because all of the Sloughs are drained and there is 
hardly a vestige of unplower prairie cover.Further south in the old 
glaciated prairie the soil is much poorer and consequently farming is 
less intensive,which may in a general account for the survival of chick- 
ens there. | 
The almost complete disappearance of chickens in the western part 
of the state is a mystery when compared with their survival in the east 
and northeast. 
Looking at the situation in a broad way, there must be some spec- 
ial reason to account for the excellent showing of the state as a whole. 
It is possible that chickens are making their last stand here rather 
than further toward the northeast,for the same reason that the buffalo 
made their last stand on the Colorado plains in spite of the gact that 
hunting had driven them across the mountains into the Great Basin coun- 
try.They were exterminated from the Great Basin before they were exter-~- 
minated from Colorado,possibly because the Great Basin was not their 
indigenous habitat and they were less perfectly adapted to it. 
Wisconsin,Minnesota,and the Dakotas were probably originally pre- 
dominated sharptail country rather than prairie chickencountry,but the 
chicken followed grain farming into these regions from its Original home 
in Iowa and Illinois. It might, however,show less resistance to extermén~ 
ation in its acquired range than in its original range. 
The flew in this theory is the almost complete disappearance of 
chicken from TIowa,where they were certainly a native species, 
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