& TH EA UDO BO Newb U bole ie 
for that reason institutional trapping stations are especially de- 
sirable. Bird Clubs, departments of Colleges, 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 Thomasville, 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 oi 
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 
