BIRD NEWS 



7 



scTired, giving all data. 



Marked White Stork of Basuto- 

 land — I heard some days ago of a 

 White Stock (Ciconia ciconiao) hav- 

 ing been shot in January by a native 

 village, about 2 5 miles from here, 

 with a silver ring attached to its leg. 

 I got the chief to send it in for in- 

 spection, as he does not want to part 

 with it, and the ring is still attached 

 ot the half-dried leg. It bears the in- 

 scription "Vogelwarte Rositten 12 65 

 Germania." Can one find out the his- 

 tory of the bird, as the natives are 

 much interested in it. — J. P. Murray, 

 Maseru, Basutoland, South Africa, 

 March 16, 1909 



In connection with above, B.-N. is 

 pleased to report the following cir- 

 cular has been sent us: — 



"The winter-quarters and routes 

 of our migrant birds are until now 

 yet unknown, and there is only one 

 method which leads to positive know- 

 ledge on this account: the marking of 

 birds by aluminium rings, a method 

 which has been tried with success 

 in Germany and in Denmark, as a 

 House-Stork marked in Pomerania 

 was caught in Africa, 15 deg. S. of 

 the Equator. The Hungarian Cen- 

 tral Bureau for Ornithology has now 

 also begun the marking of young 

 Storks, Herons, Gulls, and Swallows. 

 The aluminium ring is fastened a- 

 round the leg of the bird and it bears 

 in each case the inscription 'Buda- 

 pest,' followed by a number which 

 corresponds in the entry in the regis- 

 ter-book of the Hungarian Central 

 Bureau for Ornithology. Anyone 

 catching such a marked bird, or hear- 

 ing of the capture of such, is kindly 

 requested to send the ring' on to the 

 Hungarian Central Bureau for Orni- 

 thology, Jozsef-korut 65, Budapest 

 VIII., Hungary, accompanied by a 

 notice stating the locality, time, and 

 particulars of capture 



THE LONDON TIMES ON 



AiVIERICAN MUSEUMS 



Those who attended the Ornitho- 

 logical Congress in London in 1905 

 had an opportunty of seeing lantern 

 pictures of some of the "habitat 

 groups" arranged by Mr. Frank Chap- 

 man for the American Museum of 

 Natural History. These groups (said 

 'The Times,' in a review of Mr. Chap- 

 man's last book) are of a more am- 

 bitious kind than any which are to 

 be seen at present either in our own 

 Natural History Museum or in living 

 form in the aviaries at the Zoological 

 Gardens. They aim at displaying not 

 only the birds' nesting life, but the 

 types of country which they haunt, 

 and they include painted back- 

 grounds representing wide stretches 

 of characteristic scenery, as well 

 as exact reconstructions of the 

 nests and their immediate surround- 

 ings, such as are to be seen in the 

 lifelike cases at South Kensington. 

 To judge from the illustrations here 

 given, many of these groups are very 

 successful in overcoming the difficulty 

 of combining concrete and pictorial 

 representations without disturbance 

 of the sense of reality. 

 Bird Music. 



On the vexed question whether 

 England or America has the sweeter 

 singers, the reviewers says that Mr. 

 Chapman discreetly refuses to com- 

 mit himself to a downright opinion, 

 after spending only a few weeks in 

 one country and a lifetime in the 

 other. But he points out that the 

 author's individual comparisons indi- 

 cate fairly clearly that, in spite of 

 the poets' praises of the Skylark, 

 Thrush, and Nightingale, he considers 

 the fields and forests of America to 

 be the richer in song. That he was 

 rather disappointed with the Nightin- 

 gale proves, indeed, but little. Pro- 

 bably every Englishman who hears 

 it for the first time feels the same. 



