HISTORICAL ACCOUNT 13 



tarsus several metal rings, one of which is stated to 

 have been placed on the bird in Turkey several 

 years earlier. This seems to be the first recorded use 

 in bird-marking of a metal ring placed on the tarsus. 

 Sporadic records of birds marked in various ways 

 occur in literature at random, but scientific use of 

 this method did not begin until 1899, when C. C. 

 Mortensen in Denmark began systematically to 

 band storks, teal, starlings, and other birds. The 

 results to be obtained from this method were so 

 obvious that it became popular almost at once, so 

 that by 1914 eighteen or twenty distinct projects for 

 the marking of birds were in progress or in contem- 

 plation in Europe. The work was checked in part by 

 the World War, but is now again in full progress. In 

 the United States early attempts at banding birds, 

 fostered in part by Dr. L. J. Cole, crystallized in 

 1909 in the organization of the American Bird-Band- 

 ing Association, conducted from 191 1 until 1920 by 

 the Linnaean Society of New York, and then taken 

 over by the Bureau of Biological Survey, of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture. Under 

 the present organization bands are issued to mem- 

 bers, who report to W^ashington, with all necessary 

 data, the birds on which they are placed. The work 

 is regularly advertised through the press so that the 

 bands are often recognized when found, or, if not, 

 the finder usually has sufficient interest or curiosity 



