Meet UobelteheOwNe bo ele EN 13 
the weather. I don’t think he could have survived much longer. In spite of 
a passing interest in suet and bread, he remained loyal to old pears and 
that seems rather poor fare for winter, especially when frozen hard and 
therefore not easy to break up. 
“T’ve since heard that he was seen by two of our neighbors in the same 
block during about the same period. I doubt that he ranged much farther. 
“So that’s the end of that story. Why he stayed so late is anybody’s 
guess.” 
fl ft ft 
Banding Events of 1939 
By KARL E. BARTEL 
ONE OF the most thrilling events of the year was the banding of a Bewick’s 
wren. The bird was first seen building a nest under a water wagon on 
April 14. The first egg was laid on April 24 and on May 38 seven egg's were 
found in the nest. I took the mother bird off the nest May 5 and she was 
given band No. 36-39217. This is the only Bewick’s wren to have been 
banded so far north in Illinois. The news moved fast and on May 16 the 
eggs were gone. Someone must have collected them. They could not have 
hatched as the water wagon was taken away every other day for an hour, 
and sometimes half a day. During this time the bird was off the nest, which 
very shortly stopped the growth in the eggs. On May 27 a house wren took 
over the nest but gave it up when a wren house was placed nearby. 
I banded my first bob-whites—two of them; also a bittern, the first 
since 1933. On a trip to Depue, Ill. to band great blue herons I found the 
water high again, thus accounting for the banding of only twenty-three 
birds. A bit of luck came my way in finding two bank swallows’ banks. 
In three attempts 136 bank swallows were banded. Only six myrtle warblers 
were banded this fall as against seventy-eight in the fall of 1938. 
During the year two partial albinos were banded: one a fox sparrow 
with white outer tail feathers, March 30, the other a female bronzed grackle 
which had the first, second and third primaries and four secondaries of the 
left wing white. She was given band No. 39-852645. We come upon albino 
birds quite often. I have had at least fifteen birds in the past seven years 
that were partial albinos. Melanism was found to have been present on a 
searlet tanager in 19386. This bird had the plumage of an adult male but 
had a solid black cap and yellow wings. 
My total of birds banded from January, 1933, to December 31, 1939, is 
over 12,200. The outstanding totals are as follows: 3,401 slate-colored 
juncos, 2,757 white-throated sparrows, 716 fox sparrows, 420 robins, 369 
olive-backed thrushes, 365 great blue herons, 319 ovenbirds, 314 hermit 
thrushes, 267 song sparrows, 178 tree sparrows, 161 brown thrashers, 156 
redstarts, 145 bronzed grackles, 136 bank swallows, 135 gray-cheeked 
thrushes, 131 white-crowned sparrows, 123 myrtle warblers, 118 black- 
crowned night herons, 113 swamp sparrows, 92 semipalmated sandpipers. 
I have banded a grand total of 128 species of birds. Below are listed 
some rare species I have banded and the number: seven yellow-crowned 
night herons (the first record of the banding of these birds in Illinois), 
