BIRD BANDING, THE TELLTALE OF MIGRATORY FLIGHT 



119 



One return is of ex- 

 traordinary interest. 

 A Common Tern and 

 100 unfledged young 

 of its kind were 

 banded in 191 3 on 

 M u s c o n g u s Bay, 

 iVIaine. Four years 

 later a negro paddling 

 a canoe on a branch of 

 the Niger River, on 

 the West Coast of Af- 

 rica, found a strange 

 white bird floating 

 dead in the water, 

 with a metal band on 

 one of its legs. He 

 took it to a mission- 

 ary, and thus the band 

 and the record came 

 back to the Biological 

 Survey. 



Two Caspian Terns 

 banded at a bird col- 

 ony on Lake Michi- 

 gan in 1923 were cap- 

 tured a year later in 

 Nova Scotia. No 

 doubt they had gone 

 to the South Atlantic 

 or Gulf coast for the 

 winter and then joined 

 their fellows moving 

 up the Atlantic coast 

 to new haunts, instead 

 of returning up the 

 Alississippi Valley to 

 their birthplace. Three 

 others banded at the 

 same colony were re- 

 covered in Colombia, 

 South America. 



A Great Blue Heron banded at Waseca, 

 ^linnesota, was killed near Gatun Lake, 

 in the Canal Zone. A Snowy Egret banded 

 on the Bear River Marshes of Utah was 

 taken more than six years later in cen- 

 tral-western IMe.xico. A White Pelican 

 banded in the Yellowstone National Park 

 was killed in the State of Vera Cruz, 

 Mexico. 



The Biological Survey has banded mi- 

 grating wild fowl on a considerable scale 

 in the famous Bear River Marshes of 

 Utah, during September and October 



Photograph from W, I. Lyon 



BEING B.^lNDED doesn't SEEM TO ANNOY THIS YOUNG 



HERRING GUEE 



All Gulls fight when picked up. Grown ones continue their resist- 

 ance until released, but the young ones soon cease to struggle and take 

 their temporary captivity philosophically. Mr. W. I. Lyon, the operator, 

 is secretary of a large bird-banding organization. 



from 1914 to 1916. Nearly 1,000 Ducks 

 belonging to nine species were thus 

 marked. Of these 174, or about 17 per 

 cent of the number banded, were recov- 

 ered at points as far east as Kansas, south 

 into JMexico, west to California, and north 

 into Canada. 



Such dispersal proves that these marshes 

 ser\'e as congregating places for migratory 

 wild fowl journeying down from far- 

 northern breeding grounds, and that on 

 the approach of winter they move on to 

 warmer regions, including California. Ap- 



