Concentrations of Chemical Elements in Pheasant Tissues 
The elemental constituents of biological material are 
of vital concern to many disciplines of research, par- 
ticularly physiology, nutrition, and medicine. It is 
common knowledge that certain inorganic ions must 
be available for plants and animals to grow, survive, 
and reproduce. Conversely, many ions are toxic when 
present in excess — an axiom of primary concern to 
researchers in environmental pollution. The advent of 
the Atomic Age, and the realization that all elements 
can be made radioactive, magnified the importance of 
ions in living material, especially in man. 
Chemical elements that occur in living material are 
commonly divided into two groups, major elements 
and trace elements, the line of demarcation being some- 
what arbitrarily set at 0.01 percent of an organism 
(Schroeder 1965:217), or at roughly 5,000-10,000 
ppm in tissue ash. However, as Schroeder points out, 
this distinction is not always applicable when high 
concentrations of trace elements occur in special cases. 
Some trace elements — those having a physiological 
function for at least one organism — are known to be 
essential, while others — those for which no function 
has yet been discovered — are “nonessential.” Many 
of the “nonessential” ions accumulate in living organ- 
-isms as the organisms increase in age, a phenomenon 
that has recently been associated with certain diseases 
in man (Schroeder 1965:225-226). 
This paper reports the concentrations of five major 
elements and 18 trace elements in selected body parts 
(blood, bones, fat, feathers, muscles, and _ internal 
organs) of 54 hen pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) 
collected from three areas in Illinois. The analyses 
were conducted during an investigation of the possible 
effects of inorganic ions on the distribution and 
abundance of pheasants in this midwestern state. Por- 
tions of the analyses, as well as analyses of soil, grit, 
and corn, have been published elsewhere under the 
title “Relationships between Inorganic Ions and the 
Distribution of Pheasants in Illinois” (Anderson & 
Stewart 1969). Because of their potential contribution 
to many areas of research, the analyses of the pheasants’ 
body parts are presented in their entirety in this publi- 
cation. So that comparisons of data may be made 
easily, all tables follow the Literature Cited section. 
This paper is published by authority of the State of Illinois, 
IRS Ch. 127, Par. 58.12. William L. Anderson is an Associate 
Wildlife Specialist, Section of Wildlife Research, at the Illinois 
Natural History Survey, Urbana, and Peggy i Stewart is a 
Research Associate at the Department of Physics, University of 
Tennessee, Knoxville. 
William L. Anderson and Peggy L. Stewart 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
Acknowledgments are made to the following per- 
sonnel of the Illinois Natural History Survey: to 
William R. Edwards for administrative support and 
encouragement, to Dr. Glen C. Sanderson, Robert M. 
Zewadski, and O. F. Glissendorf for editorial assist- 
ance, to Dr. Richard R. Graber for technical advice 
during preparation of the manuscript, to Richard M. 
Sheets for the cover design, and to Mary Ann Johnson 
for assistance in dissecting pheasants. Appreciation is 
also extended to the staff members and _ students 
employed in the Spectrographic Laboratory of the 
Department of Physics, University of Tennessee, for 
their enthusiasm and wholehearted cooperation during 
all aspects of the analytical work. 
Dr. Isabel H. Tipton, Department of Physics, Univer- 
sity of Tennessee, and Dr. Robert E. Johnson, Depart- 
ment of Physiology and Biophysics, University of 
Illinois, kindly reviewed the manuscript. 
This research is a contribution from Illinois Federal 
Aid Project No. W-66-R: the Illinois Department of 
Conservation, the U.S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries and 
Wildlife, and the Illinois Natural History Survey, 
cooperating. 
METHODS 
Pheasants used in this study were collected by night- 
lighting (Labisky 19685) from three areas — good 
pheasant range, fair range, and poor range — in Illinois 
(Table 1). The birds were of three age groups: 
4-month-old juveniles, 7-month-old juveniles, and 
adults (Table 1). Juveniles were separated from adults 
by bursal examination. The 4-month-old juveniles were 
further aged to the nearest week according to advance- 
ment of molt of the primary flight feathers (Labisky 
1968a:465). 
After being held overnight in a wooden crate, the 
pheasants were weighed, then sacrificed by decapita- 
tion. Samples of whole blood were collected at the time 
of sacrifice and saved for analysis. To obtain an indi- 
cation of size, the wing length of each bird was 
recorded. This measurement was taken as the distance 
from the anterior edge of the wrist joint of the wing 
to the tip of the longest primary feather after the curve 
of this feather had been flattened out along a ruler 
(Baldwin, et al. 1931:77-78). The pheasants were 
then placed individually in polyethylene bags, frozen, 
and held for 2--4 months until they could be dissected. 
