Most of the ringing in Europe is done on nestlings.
In the U.S.A. most elaborate and ingenious methods have been devised for catching adult birds ; and it is claimed that the nets and traps entail no cruelty. This perhaps is hard to imagine ; but there is certainly no cruelty, but only kindness, in the ringing of grown birds within the most marvellous of all the world's sanctuaries, the domain of Mr. Jack Miner, just inside Canada, on the southern borders of Ontario. He has so completely persuaded birds, especially those great migrants, the Canada geese, that man is a friend not an enemy, that they descend in their hundreds on his feeding ground, and when there will allow themselves to be handled. He attaches a Biblical text to their leg as well as a ring, and calls the geese his missionaries ; but he casts his bread on the waters. Many rings and texts have come back after many days, and indeed many years, from Labrador in the North and from the Southern States, so that to-day the lines of geese migration may be traced as accurately almost as a traveller's journey.
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