28 THE ALU DU BtiOWN” BU Lee Kel ies 
guard. As she fired at one, it dropped the white object that it was carry 
ing in its beak. It was the glossy white egg of a purple martin! Th 
sparrows had been sharing a Musselman house with the martins. W 
have regarded them as nuisances, but we haven’t suspected them o6 
such villainy. In the later case, the sparrow was caught “with the goods 
so there’s no doubt of his guilt, but would he be capable of killing th 
young? A newly hatched purple martin was also found on the groun 
below the house. Could a sparrow have pushed it out of its apartment 
We'd be interested in hearing some opinions from “Audubon Bulletin 
readers. 
ilale 
SPARROW 
THAT LIVED 
FOR 19 YEARS 
by Mary Bertha Huxford 
The note left in my room read, ‘‘I have something interestin; 
to tell you.” It was signed “Grace Stewart.’ I was not onl} 
sorry to miss seeing Miss Stewart but also curious to know wha 
she wanted to talk about on such a hot summer day. So afte 
dinner my friend, Irene Buchanan, and I drove over to see Mis 
Stewart at her home in Wilmette. 
She seated us comfortably in her cool parlor and said witl 
more enthusiasm than was her habit, “‘I have just received ‘ 
return on one of the birds that I have banded.” She picked uy 
a record card from a near-by table and handed it to me. 
sensed that this was a specially satisfying report but I was no 
prepared for what was to come. Miss Stewart had just receivec 
a report from the Fish and Wildlife Service Patuxent Refug 
in Laurel, Maryland, that a band she had placed on a white 
throated Sparrow 18 years ago had just been recovered i 
Pennsville, N.J. in February, 1966, by A. Labriola. The bit 
had been banded on May 4, 1948 when it was a year old. 
I was skeptical — but politely so — that a white-throatec 
sparrow would live for 19 years so I asked Miss Stewart 1 
she had checked her records. ‘‘No,’’ she replied. ‘““Would yor 
care to do it with me?’’ We went out to her desk on the porch 
Searching through her books she found one dated 1948. My 
heart sank when the record stopped at May Ist. But Mis: 
Stewart found another 1948 book that continued the recorc 
of that spring’s banding. On May 4 was the notation: white: 
throated sparrow, adult, band number 21-85197 — the sam 
band number on the recovered bird. This was indeed a fitting 
reward to an amateur bird bander and naturalist teacher o! 
sO many years standing. 
