638 A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



available data. Phenology did not provide information concerning the speed 

 and direction of individual migrants; a new technique was needed. 



Individual birds had been marked on many previous occasions but the at- 

 tempts were sporadic and of short duration. It was a Danish schoolmaster, Hans 

 Christian Cornelius Mortensen (b. 1856, d. 1921) v/ho first attempted to band 

 birds in a systematic fashion. His first trial in 1890 was with zinc bands in- 

 scribed "Viborg 1890." Two such bands were placed upon starlings. Mortensen 

 noted that the bands seemed to be unpleasant to the birds and gave up the 

 project. A few years later aluminum came into use for poultry bands. A mer- 

 ganser which Mortensen banded with one of these was shot soon after and the 

 band was returned to him. In 1899 he captured and banded 162 adult starlings 

 but no returns were received. The experiment was repeated in 1900 with bands 

 stamped "M. Danmark" and this time his banded birds were shot in Holland 

 and Norway. The technique had proved successful. 



Banding developed rapidly. In 1900 the German Ornithological Society 

 (Deutschen Ornithologen-Gesellschaft) subsidized and founded the now famous 

 "Vogelwarte Rossitten." This bird observation station located at the town of 

 Rossitten on the narrow coastal spit of the Kurische Nehrung was placed under 

 the direction of Johannes Thienemann (b. 1863, d. 1938). The principal objec- 

 tive was the study of migration. Banding was begun in 1903, using aluminum 

 rings carrying a number and the year. By 1937 over 763,000 birds had been 

 banded at Rossitten and returns totaled more than 10,000. The Rossitten sta- 

 tion remained active until World War II and produced a large number of signifi- 

 cant papers. The idea of banding spread rapidly and Avas adopted by other 

 organizations and individuals. Paul Bartsch (b. 1871) of the United States Na- 

 tional Museum banded 101 fledgling black-crowned night herons near Washing- 

 ton, D. C, in 1902 and 1903, and in 1902 Leon J. Cole (b. 1877, d. 1948) pro- 

 posed the systematic use of banding as a means of studying migration. 



Other investigators soon followed these pioneers and by 1909 banding had be- 

 come important enough to siiggest the need for an organized effort. The Ameri- 

 can Bird Banding Association was formed in New York on November 8, 1909. 

 For the next decade the work was sponsored by various organizations, including 

 the Linnaean Society of New York and the New Haven Bird Club, in addition 

 to the American Bird Banding Association. In 1920 the Bureau of Biological 

 Survey took over the responsibility of furnishing bands and maintaining the 

 records and Frederick C. Lincoln was placed in charge of the project. Over 

 1,000,000 birds had been banded in the United States and Canada by 1933 and 

 nearly 6,000,000 by 1949. 



The year 1909 also saw the formation of two banding organizations in Great 

 Britain. A. Landsborough Thomson founded the Aberdeen University Bird- 

 Migration Inquiry and Mr. H. F. Witherby launched a banding program in con- 

 nection with the magazine British Birds. In 1937 the latter program was trans- 

 ferred to the control of the British Trust for Ornithology, with headquarters in 

 the British Museum (Natural History). By 1927 there were seven European 

 countries operating banding stations. In 1950 Rydzewski listed banding stations 

 in eighteen European countries, Egypt, South Africa, India, Japan, Australia, 

 New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. 



The German bird observation stations of Rossitten and Helgoland have moved 



