114 
number will take this up to insure the com- 
plete success of the project.— E. W. NELSON, 
CHIEF OF BuREAU, Washington, D. C., April 
26, 1920. 
PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED 
BIRD BANDING BY MEANS OF SYSTEMATIC 
TRAPPING. By S. PRENTISS BALDWIN. Ab- 
stract of Proceedings, Linnaean Society of 
New York, no. 31, 1919, pp. 23-56, pls. I-vir. 
Separate received March 17, 1920. 
Both bird-banding and bird-trapping have 
been used independently for one purpose or 
another for many years, yet it has remained 
for Mr. S. Prentiss Baldwin of Cleveland, 
Ohio, to combine these two procedures into 
a “new” method which has great potential- 
ities for certain lines of ornithological study. 
Quite incidentally, in an effort to rid his 
farm of English Sparrows, Mr. Baldwin saw 
the possibilities of this method, and the 
paper cited above gives a summary of his 
results for the period from 1914 to 1918. 
Part of the work was done in the summer 
time at Cleveland, Ohio, and the balance at 
Thomasville, Georgia, during the late winter 
and early spring months. 
The author’s method was to set and bait 
one or more of the “government” double- 
funnelled sparrow traps, surrounding each 
by a 20-foot circle of 3-foot wire netting as 
a cat guard. Traps were visited at frequent 
intervals, the captured birds being removed, 
tagged and recorded and then released. In 
addition, during the summer, a number of 
House Wrens were caught in box nests pro- 
vided with a trap door. 
The species caught by the sparrow traps 
include Song, Chipping, White-throated and 
White-crowned Sparrows, White-eyed Tow- 
hee, Myrtle Warbler, Red-bellied Woodpeck- 
er, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Bluejay and 
Mourning Dove, although traps set for the 
larger of these birds would not always re- 
tain the smaller species. Shrikes gave some 
trouble in Thomasville and had to be hunted 
down, but cats were effectively guarded 
against by the circle of netting. A few birds 
injured themselves through their struggles 
in the trap, but subsequent recapture of 
some of these individuals showed that such 
wounds healed in a few days. 
Permanent residents, summer visitants, 
winter visitants and transients all figure in 
the results. Trapping at Thomasville in the 
spring of 1917, and using five traps for six 
weeks, some 684 birds were captured. Of 
these 414 were “repeats” that had been 
THE CONDOR 
Bi 
Vol. XXII 
trapped, branded and released previously. 
Of 239 new birds, 215 were classed as mi- 
grants or winter visitants and only 24 as 
residents. Four of a lot totalling 63 belong- 
ing to the visitant-migrant category banded 
in 1915 were retrapped in this season and 
17 of 169 banded in 1916 were taken again 
in 1917. Of residents, two of 27 banded in 
1915 were recovered and 8 of 44 trapped in 
1916. 
Mr. Baldwin obtained definite evidence on 
a number of the heretofore unsolved prob- 
lems in ornithology. The return of winter 
visitants was shown strikingly in the case 
of White-throated Sparrows. Twelve of a 
flock of twenty were banded in 1915. Two 
of these were recovered in 1916 and five new 
birds banded. In 1917 one 1915 bird and four 
1916 birds were recovered. The birds in 
this flock in three successive years, stayed 
close about a certain thicket at which his 
trap “A” was placed. They rarely ventured 
as far as trap “B’, 100 yards distant, and 
none was ever taken in the latter trap. 
Chipping Sparrows which do not winter at 
Thomasville have been taken in the spring 
of successive years, showing that migrants 
stop off at the same stations when en route 
between their winter and summer ranges. 
Trapping in 1917 resulted in the recapture 
of three of these sparrows banded in 1915 
and eight of those marked in 1916. Song Spar- 
rows trapped at Cleveland indicated that 
migrants do not move forward at a uniform 
rate, but, in fall at least, make a move, then 
linger until a storm urges them on when 
their places may be taken by new arrivals 
from the north. 
Perhaps the most interesting observations 
of all are those made on House Wrens at 
Cleveland. On June 19, 1915, a pair and 
the members of its brood were banded in a 
certain “trap” nest. On August 14 the same 
year one member of this pair was found 
with a new mate and second brood in the 
same box while the other member of the 
original pair also had a new mate (unfor- 
tunately not banded) and was also rearing a 
second brood in another box about 100 feet 
from the first. In 1916 the second of these 
“divorced” Wrens was found at the same 
(second) box but the identity of its spouse 
as regards the second 1915 mating could not 
be ascertained. 
Contrary to general opinion the handling 
of birds incidental to their being removed 
from the traps and being tagged does not 
discourage their return as is proven by the 
number of recaptures. 
Some birds acquire — 
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