SOMETHING ABOUT BIRDS 



[II 



Common Tern, banded on the coast of Maine on July 3, 1913, was found 

 dead four years later, in August 1917, at the mouth of the Niger River 

 in British West Africa. 



A number of banding stations have been operating in Oregon more or 

 less sporadically. Until 1935, the station at the great Malheur Migratory 

 Bird Refuge, in charge of George M. Benson, had banded the greatest 

 number of birds and had had the greatest number of recoveries reported. 

 Table i shows the number of waterfowl banded at this and other Oregon 

 stations and the number and percentage of banded birds recovered to 

 July i, 1935. Table 2. shows these returns by localities. 



TABLE i. RETURNS OF WATERFOWL BANDED IN OREGON, TO JULY i, 1935. 



One of the interesting things shown in Table i is that a return of approxi- 

 mately 10 per cent of the, ducks banded may be expected. Other species 

 than game birds show far lower returns, although the percentage tends 

 to mount on all birds as the years pass and more of the birds banded in 

 earlier years are recovered. 



Table 2. and the accompanying map (Figure i) indicate how widely the 

 ducks bred or captured in migration at Malheur spread over the country. 

 It will be noted that the great majority of returns of Malheur-banded 

 birds are from California, Oregon, and Idaho. This is entirely to be 

 expected and confirms popular belief that the great Malheur marshes 

 furnish a large percentage of their birds to California sportsmen. 



The banding records show migration routes clearly. Malheur-raised 

 birds are shot regularly in western Oregon but not in great numbers. On 

 the other hand, great numbers of mallards banded at the National Bison 



