IOWA STATE COLLEGE                       
       V 1 
                               OP AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS         
       J 
                                         AMES, IOWA 
 
 
 
DEPARTMENT OF ZOOLOGY AND ENTOMOLOGY                          September 13,
1940 
 
 
 
 
      Professor Aldo Leopold 
      424 University Farm Place 
      Madison, Wisconsin 
 
      Dear Aldo; 
 
                I have your letter and inclosures of September 4, mostly
relating 
      to the MS on frontier bob-whites. 
 
           I am willing to release you from the co-authorship agreement,
as you 
      request. This, incidentally, relieves the pressure of my own schedule
as 
      well as yours, for I just haven't been able to see when - within a
reasonable 
      space of time - I could do the work on it that looks necessary. The
way I 
      feel now, perhaps the MS and data should ripen a few years longer,
anyway. 
 
           Perhaps I made a mistake in trying to cover the whole northern
and north- 
      western frontiers, which thus necessitates so much reliance upon correspondence.

      When I finally get around to do anything on the MS again, I think that
I shall 
      restrict the discussion to the northwestern frontier, as exemplified
by north- 
      western Iowa and all of South Dakota, where I know practically every
county. 
      Adequate comparisons can be made with the northern frontier and the
regular 
      range on the basis of a less complete account. This also will save
me much 
      correspondence concerning areas witk which I am not personally familiar.

      Then, too, certainly no one can say with justification that the status
of bob- 
      whites on the high plains of South Dakota is an overworked subject.

 
           My method of hatching in the nearly quail-vacant fringes of the
range was 
      intended only to indicate that some quail could be expected now and
then in 
      a general part of the region. You are perfectly right about suspecting
that 
      therO are large vacant areas in northern North Dakota, etc., but even
up 
      toward the Canadian Line, I doubt if there are many places where one
could go 
      and still be sure that a bob-white was not living, or had not recently
lived, 
      within fifty miles. In fact, my experience has been that the finding
of quail 
      or recet evidence of them even in the predominantly cactus and sagebrush
country 
      of northwestern South Dakota was chiefly a matter of spending enough
time search- 
      ing. Hence, a hatching system, in my estimation, really gives a more
accurate 
      picture than the recording of actual records as dots. However, if I
confine 
      my statements largely to South Dakota, I may not need a map at all,
or possibly 
      only one to enable the reader to locate towns and other landmarks mentioned

      in the text.