8 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



for that reason institutional trapping stations are especially de- 

 sirable. Bird Clubs, departments of Golleges, Audubon So- 

 cieties, State and National Parks, Natural History Societies all 

 should operate trapping stations, as well as individuals. 



The memberships are : Active, composed of those interested 

 in the work, and those who will trap and place bands, dues $1.00 ; 

 Sustaining, those wishing to help with the expense and promo- 

 tion, $5.00 or more. 



If you are interested send in your application to the Treas- 

 urer. Herbert L. Stoddard 



The Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wis. 



Bird Banding Activities at Tnomasville, Georgia 



It was my pleasure to be selected as the middle west rep- 

 resentative to take charge of the Bird Banding at the famous 

 Inwood Plantation, where yearly Mr. C. Prentiss Balwin car- 

 ries on his Bird Banding experiments. The plantation is a 

 beautiful southern estate with occasional open fields and a 

 great deal of tall, native pine protected by a keeper so that 

 both migrant song birds and game birds are very numerous. 



In forty days I was fortunate enough to trap more than 

 four thousand birds. Of course, many of these were birds 

 which had been captured in previous years, while the rest of 

 them were new or repeats. On the legs of every new bird was 

 placed an identification band of aluminum, while every bird 

 which had been banded in former years was recorded and the 

 1923 life of the bird was forwarded to the Biological Survey 

 at Washington to complete the bird's history which is kept 

 on a card numbered to correspond with the number on the 

 bird's band. 



The smallest bird captured was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet 

 which I captured twice. I have always understood this bird 

 to be an insect eating bird and I caught it both times at trap 

 "A" where only small grain and bread crumbs were distrib- 

 uted. This tiny bird escaped from one of my collecting traps, 

 the mesh of which is three-fourths of an inch in size, which 

 shows how very tiny it must be. 



Most numerous of all birds were the Chipping Sparrows. 

 In front of my house I had a drop trap made of a square 

 frame, five feet across, covered with a string netting. On one 

 side was a stick to which was attached a string. In the early 

 morning the Chipping Sparrows would gather under this trap 

 literally by the dozens. When the string was pulled the trap 

 would descend, capturing a large number of these tiny birds. 

 None was killed because the trap in descending did not fall to 

 the ground. The distance between the board and the ground 

 was covered by a heavy, brown, canvas cloth. My greatest 

 catch with this trap was fifty-one birds, another trap similar 

 to the common rat trap type of Sparrow trap was used to good 



