March 5, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
373 
To Identify Migrating Birds. 
A real difficulty in the study of bird migra¬ 
tion is the impossibility of tracing the move¬ 
ments of individual birds. It is hoped that this 
difficulty may be overcome by the practice of 
permanently marking birds. This method of 
studying migration has for several years been 
employed in European countries and with in¬ 
teresting results, for storks marked in Southern 
Europe have been killed in South Africa. The 
method employed is called banding, and consists 
in attaching to the legs of wild birds metal bands 
which bear a number, and an address request¬ 
ing anyone into whose hands the bird may fall 
to notify the Auk of the fact, and of the num¬ 
ber of the band. 
This winter there was organized in New York 
city the American Bird Banding Association, of 
which Dr. Leon J. Cole is the president. The 
officers and most of the members of the society 
are members of the American Ornithological 
Union and also prominent in the Audubon move¬ 
ment in America, and it may thus be understood 
that the shooting of birds to recover the bands 
that they may bear is no part of the scheme. 
Nevertheless a certain proportion of these bands 
sociation, together with blanks for recording. 
These bands, in addition to the number, will 
bear the regular inscription which will insure the 
record being sent to the association if the bird 
ever chances to be taken. The association on 
its part will agree to supply the organization do¬ 
ing the banding with a duplicate copy of any 
such “returns” as may come in. On the other 
hand it is to be agreed that the records of any 
of these birds taken by members of the shoot¬ 
ing clubs shall be similarly turned over to the 
Banding Association. It will be understood that 
either organization is free to make such use of 
these records as it may see fit. 
The president of the association would be glad 
to correspond with any organization which might 
care to undertake this sort of work. His ad¬ 
dress is Dr. Leon J. Cole, Peabody Museum, 
New Haven, Conn., or after April 1, JJniversity 
of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 
Catalogue of Canadian Birds. 
A number of years ago the Geological Survey 
of Canada issued a catalogue of Canadian birds 
by John Macoun. naturalist of the Geological 
Gull Photographing. 
At the recent congress held in New York 
Dec. 7 to 9, following their custom, trips to the 
Aquarium and Zoological Park were provided 
for Dec. 10 and a tug trip to the feeding grounds 
of the herring gulls off the fishing banks was 
arranged for Dec. 11. While only twelve mem¬ 
bers availed themselves of the latter trip, it was 
a most enjoyable affair, and in view of the sea¬ 
son and the fact that many who would other¬ 
wise have taken the trip were deterred by fear 
of cold and seasickness, it was not unsuccessful, 
even in point of numerical attendance. It is also 
worthy of note that there were four women in 
the party, which consisted of the following per¬ 
sons : Miss Anna K. Barrie and Mrs. G. H. 
Reed, of New York; Mrs. B. S. Bowdish, of 
Demarest, N. J.; Miss A. R. Sherman, of Na¬ 
tional, Iowa; William Dutcher and W. DeW. 
Miller, of Plainfield, N. J.; F. L. Van Tassel), 
of Passaic, ,N. J.; T. Gilbert Pearson, of Greens¬ 
boro, N. C.; Chester K. Reed, of Worcester, 
Mass.; James Savage, of Buffalo, N. Y.; Henry 
Hales, of Ridgwood, N. J., and B. S. Bowdish. 
of Demarest, N. J. 
While nearly ideal in some respects, weather 
HERRING GULLS ON THE BEACH AT SANDY HOOK. 
Photographed by B. S. Bowdish. 
will be recovered in one way or another, and 
may lead to interesting results, as was the case 
in 1909 when a number of young night herons 
were banded at a rookery on Cape Cod, and two 
or three months later were reported from three 
different New England States. There have been 
received from North Carolina and Tennessee re¬ 
ports of a bluebird and a robin which were 
tagged in Maine and in Ohio, respectively. 
Dr. Cole, president of the society, wishes through 
the columns of Forest and Stream to call the 
attention of shooting clubs and those having 
game preserves to the advantages which they 
may derive by co-operating with the American 
Bird Banding Association in the way of band¬ 
ing ducks and other game birds. An organiza¬ 
tion having a preserve upon which game birds 
breed or are fostered might well like to know 
what becomes of these birds and to what extent 
they return to the same region in succeeding 
years. To any such organization the Banding As¬ 
sociation is prepared to supply at a nominal cost 
bands numbered in the regular series of the as- 
Survey. The different parts appeared at differ¬ 
ent dates, Part I. in 1900, Part II. in 1903 and 
Part III. in 1904. The favor with which the 
catalogue met was instantaneous and the stock of 
copies was exhausted almost immediately. 
Now at the end of 1909 another edition of this 
catalogue has been issued with much of the mat¬ 
ter rewritten and many additional facts recorded. 
The names on the title page are the familiar 
ones, John Macoun, naturalist to the Geological 
Survey, and James M. Macoun, assistant natu¬ 
ralist. 
The present edition is issued by the Depart¬ 
ment of Mines, Geological Survey Branch. The 
paper is very fully annotated, most of the species 
having a page or more of notes including range 
and breeding habits, often very full. Among 
those to whom credit is given are many of the 
best field naturalists of the country, and the new 
work is a most useful and valuable contribution 
to our knowledge of Canadian birds brought ab¬ 
solutely down to date. It must be in the library 
of all working ornithologists. 
conditions were such that the gulls were not 
found in great rafts of floating and clouds of 
flying birds, thousands in numbers, that often 
occur in these waters, but several hundred were 
found feeding along the beach at Sandy Hook, 
and a battery of three reflecting cameras was 
trained on them, while the other members of 
the expedition enjoyed the wonderful tameness 
of the birds. The latter allowed the tug to ap¬ 
proach them as closely as it was possible to run 
it, probably not more than fifty feet. At a blast 
from the whistle they would rise a few feet, 
hover for a moment and then drop back to the 
spot they had just vacated. 
There was no rough water encountered dur¬ 
ing the trip, and so no seasickness. It was not 
extremely cold, and the cabin accommodation 
for the party was ample and comfortable. A 
thoroughly satisfactory lunch was served aboard 
through the generosity of one of the members, 
and the party unanimously voted the affair a 
complete success. 
B. S. Bowdish. 
