1 ( '17] The Ottawa Naturalist. 51 



quarters in my bird house on the morning of the 19th of April. The 

 ex< eption was in 1916, when they came on the 18th April. But 1916 

 was a leap year, and it would seem that the martins* calendar ignores 

 the intercalary day of the 29th February you can scarcely expect 

 birds to go into such refinements in the computation of time, and the 

 day we humans counted in 1916 as the 18th April was really the 19th 

 for them! I feared that this lost day might destroy their subsequent 

 >rd for punctuality, and I anxiously awaited their arrivel in 1917. 

 They had not put in their appearance by the 18th, and as soon as I 

 awoke on the morning of the 19th I hurried to get a view of the bird- 

 house. There to my delight were three tired-looking martins two 

 glossy blue male- and a gray-breasted female, resting silently on 

 galleries of the house. 



But while the first-comers arrive so punctually, it is usually a 

 k or ten days later before the house receives its full complement of 

 tenants. The upper compartments are the preferred ones, and are 

 invariably taken up first. When any are left unoccupied, it is always 

 i the lower floors. Nesting thus in colonies is not really natural 

 to the martins. While the}- have been quick to adapt the gregarious 

 habit, the}- a.re as yet anything hut social tie, and are continually 

 squabbling. A great deal of their lovely liquid warbling that charms 

 us so much is really abuse of the neighbors. Each household is 

 exceedingly jealous of its territorial lights, and instantly resents any 

 encroachment on its part of the verandah, fiercely threatening the 

 trespasser with open bill. Assault soon culminates in battery and the 

 ibatants tumble off the gallery, and tight it out in the air. They 

 are decidedly noisy birds, and 1 ran easily understand how annoying a 

 iony of them mighl be to anyone who is* not fond of birds. I re- 

 member a visitor who had occupied the "-[tare room," which looks 

 toward my martin house, asking rather querulously at breakfast, 

 "what are those black hirds at the back of die house?" I fear they 

 had kept him awake from some unconscionable hour of the morning. 

 But ju.-i as the honest bark of vour dog cannot possibly annoy any- 

 one, and it must be the howling of the miserable cur next door that 

 keeps the neighbourhood awake: so to the true bird-lover, the piercing 

 trills and loud warblings of the purple martin are delightful sounds, 

 even at four o'clock in the morning. 



The nest consist- of a few perfunctory straws, and usually four 

 eggs are laid, the time of incubation being from twelve to fifteen days. 

 One year the female of the pair occupying apartment No. 6 of my 

 hou>e was accidentally killed not long after the breeding season had 

 begun. I felt sorry for the poor widower, and wondered what would 

 become of him. To my surprise, in a few days he had another mate. 

 Whether he had picked up an unattached female somewhere, or had 

 eloped with some one else's wife, 1 had, of course, no means of know- 



