4 Lt HE ASU DIU BON” BU Theale 
skunk cabbage for good measure, met the approval of visiting birds, who 
have sipped and splashed, and searched the little plantation for insects, 
venturing out betimes to try the food offered in the nearby traps. 
It has been found that the winter and summer months have been sparse 
in contributing birds for banding, from early March to mid-June and late 
August to early November being the periods in which birds have come to 
the traps, with few exceptions. 
Of species caught and banded during these years especial delight is in 
a saw-whet owl, found one late November in a low lilae shrub and captured 
by the combined use of a tennis racquet and a butterfly net; a Bewick’s 
wren; two individuals of Junco montanus; a pair of cardinals, the only ones 
deigning to enter the traps; one each of Henslow’s and Harris’ sparrow; 
and a solitary cowbird. The latter two were immature and definitely 
identified only after a consultation of Ridgway’s “Birds of North and Middle 
America.” Indeed it was Robert Ridgway who in 1891, when I had the 
privilege of association with him for some time, named for me a specimen of 
Junco montanus (captured in Indiana, and earlier called Junco shufeldti), 
so that encountering the species nearly four decades later brought freshly 
to mind Mr. Ridgway’s genial wisdom. 
As was more or less to be expected, the various sparrows and their kin 
made up about two-thirds of all the birds banded, with the white-throats 
constituting over 60% of the sparrows, while juncos were a poor second, 
and white-crowns, swamp, fox, and song sparrows trailing in that order. 
While white-throats were trapped in almost equal numbers in spring and 
fall, the others were found to lean strongly toward spring appearances, with 
the single exception of fox sparrows. Of the 48 towhees banded only one 
was fall trapped. A similar preponderance held with the twelve species of 
warblers banded, of which 118 individuals were trapped in the spring, 
against only 18 in the fall. Brown creepers alone joined the fox sparrows 
in weight of fail bandings. 
Subsequent records of banded birds, either through their return to the 
station or reports of their capture elsewhere, have been surprisingly fewer 
than had been anticipated. With the exception of a brown thrasher that 
died in a snow storm half a block away, after he had lingered too long one 
fall, and a bluejay killed in an adjacent yard by a cat the year after 
banding, robins have proved to be the only species to return or be reported 
after banding, and only some half-dozen of these have been heard from. 
Two of them returned to the station in succeeding seasons, one on three 
different occasions from six to eighteen months apart, and two others were 
reported from spots farther south or southwest in Chicago, each the spring 
following its banding, as though it might have been on its way back to the 
station! Of the two remaining reportees, one ranged to near Galveston, 
Texas, and the other to Plaucheville, in central Louisiana. But despite the 
relatively small figures concerned, they do show over 8% returns, which 
compares well with average returns. Just why none of the other banded 
species has been reported is an unsolved puzzle. One can understand that 
many birds might be unable to find their way back to the original banding 
station over a confusing maze of house roofs, but at least a few might be 
expected to be found somewhere in the extent of their travels. 
