^°\^f ^"^1 Notes and News. 281 



attention of gunners, who would shoot the creatures to satisfj' curiosity. 

 But most birds carry their tarsi well buried in the body feathers while 

 flying and it is gratifying to know that of all the return records thus far 

 received none have resulted from the band being seen while the bird was 

 still at large. The discovery of the band has in each case been purely 

 accidental and has taken place after the bird was collected and in the hand. 



It may be of interest to some to learn that during the summer of 1910 

 Mr. H. F. Witherby of London, England, issued to his staff of bird banders 

 over 12,000 bands, and of these over 7900 were actually placed on birds. 

 Two of his workers banded over 2300 birds (representing 16 species) and 

 including 1200 Black-headed gulls, 600 Common terns, 157 Swallows and 

 105 Lesser Black-backed gulls. Europeans, in fact, are, at present, far 

 ahead of us in this matter of investigating the movements of birds by the 

 aid of metal rings. Bird banding activities are being carried on not alone 

 by Witherby & Co. of London, but by "Country Life" of the same place, 

 the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and at the following places on the 

 Continent — Rossiten, Denmark; Leyden, Holland; Budapest, Hungary; 

 and possibly elsewhere. If the thousands of bands used by these investi- 

 gators each year impeded or inconvenienced the birds to any extent or 

 caused many to die it would seem that some evidence in support of this 

 fact would long ago have come to light. Nor must it be thought that only 

 the larger birds in Europe have been banded, for during a single season in 

 England alone over 3000 tits and other birds no larger than some of our 

 warblers were tagged. It might not be untimely, therefore, if Americans 

 were to divest themselves of the delusion that bird banding is fanciful and 

 unpractical if not cruel and barbaric. 



The American Bird Banding Association has succeeded in gathering 

 enough funds to push ahead with the manufacturing for use during the 

 coming season of a fair number of bands which are now being made. 

 These bands may not come from the factory for several weeks, but should 

 be ready for distribution well before the nestlings of everything but great 

 horned owls are old enough to receive them. Members of the Association 

 will receive notice when bands are available and then it will remain to be 

 seen what the season of 1912 will bring forth. 



Howard H. Cleaves, Secy -Treas., 

 Public Museum, 



New Brighton, N. Y. 



On February 27, 1912, the American Museum of Natural History 

 opened for public view another of the notable habitat groups for which its 

 ornithological gallery is famous. This represents the birds of tropical 

 eastern Mexico, and illustrates the influence of altitude on the distribution 

 of life. The group includes such birds as the Amazon Parrot, Parakeet, 

 Toucan, Motmot, Trogon, tropical Tanagers, Cuckoos, Orioles, etc., which 

 are found in the dense tropical forest about the base of Mt. Orizaba while 



