A lot of questions could be answered if we knew more about the work of Mrs. G. W. Bannon. The Bannons were prominent in Portsmouth, with much interest in natural history, and Ms. Bannon was skilled in the taxidermy of birds. The following announcement appeared in the Forty-third annual report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture for the year 1888 (Westbote Co, Columbus, 1889, p. 70): "The ladies in charge of the Woman's Department have taken the liberty to commend the following exhibits to the attention of the Board, and to recommend that a silver medal be awarded for excellence: ...3. To Mrs. G. W. Bannon, of Portsmouth, for a large exhibit of the birds of Scioto county, the product of her skill in taxidermy. The exhibit was not only very large, but was pronounced by skilled persons as very excellent work." On page 155 we learn that Ms. Bannon won that silver medal. Recently, the Local History department of the Portsmouth Public Library located an undated clipping from the local newspaper in a story about a passenger pigeon specimen retained there, which reported in part that “Much of Mrs. Bannon’s collection is in the State Archaeological and Historical Museum in Columbus now.” The 1888 exhibit could not have attracted the attention of J. M. Wheaton, the state’s foremost ornithologist, who died the year before, but Oliver Davie, the famous oologist and taxidermist, lived in Columbus at the time. He does not mention Bannon in any published work I could find. The exhibit is presented in a sexist context here, and no doubt that affected its future. It may well have preceded Bannon’s preparation of the state's only whooping crane specimen, however, and any donation to the collection in the Statehouse that later became the OSU Museum presumably took place at a later date. Acquisition of the crane may have occurred after the donation, and as late as 1902. The Historical Society, some of whose collections preceded those at OSU, retains a good number of bird specimens without data. The Archaeological and Historical Museum was a product of the A&H Society, formed in Columbus in 1885, later garnering State support in 1888. In 1894 its library and museum were moved to the OSU Campus and curated by faculty. This was the direct antecedent of the current OSU Museum. Over a thousand bird skins from the A&H collection are retained at the Ohio Historical Society, forming the majority of the Wheaton Collection, nearly all of them study skins which lack tag data except for species names. There is currently nothing in either collection with data citing Bannon by name as collector, despite her many contributions to Ohio ornithology. There are 121 OSU Museum specimens from Scioto County, but only two of them lack data. Even if the donation was very large, such as the material in the exhibit, it could still conceivably be hidden among the several hundred OSUM specimens (counting only those likely from North America) with no data, which include one demounted whooping crane specimen, #756. Without data, however, this is a dead end. Is there somewhere a description of Bannon’s collection, or even an inventory of its contents? Is there an A&H Society accessions record from before 1902? There seems to be nothing of this kind at OSU. We can look at the ledgers at the OHS, but they do not elaborate on each and every article in a large accession. Most likely is more searches for information in Portsmouth, maybe with the Bannon family, or perhaps in some other place. But even if a Portsmouth inventory is found with a whooping crane and data more complete than the known record offers, we are not a millimeter closer to a specimen. The only remnant I could find of her work was a passenger pigeon mount that is still retained in Portsmouth city library. Some research on Bannon's work with birds could be very revealing, and needs doing. Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]