438 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



song is loud enough to be heard in calm weather at the distance of three hundred 

 yards, and is cheerful, although not remarkable for melody. It is often emitted 

 at intervals while the bird is on the wing in the neighbourhood of its nest, and is 

 sometimes heard more continuously, in fact for ten minutes or more, when 

 perched on the roof of a house or other elevated place. 



Witherby's Handbook (1920) says: "Song, a contented twittering 

 often warbled whilst clinging to, or actually inside, nest. Call-notes, 

 a soit 'preet-a-preet' and a coarse 'screet,' often uttered on wing. 

 Alarm-note, sharp, shrill 'prt.' " 



Enemies. — C. J. Pring (1929) publishes the following account of 

 young martins being killed and eaten by woodpeckers : 



After the Martins had begun to hatch this year (1929), several nests were 

 discovered with large holes in the bottom, and the contents missing. More nests 

 were discovered thus destroyed, until, anxious to discover the reason, Col. 

 Heneage ordered two of his gardeners to keep watch on the nests. This soon 

 disclosed the fact that a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers {Dry abates m. angli- 

 CU8) were destroying the nests and eating the young Martins — or at least por- 

 tions of them. The procedure was to fly to a nest and, clinging on to it, hammer 

 it with their bills imtil part of it broke away. In the case of those nests contain- 

 ing young, the young sometimes fell out in a heap on to the ground below, or else 

 were dragged out of the nest by the Woodpeckers. They were then taken one at a 

 time (either from the nest or the ground) on to the branch of a pear tree and 

 hammered to pieces, the breast being the chief part which was then eaten. * * * 



In the case of nests containing eggs, if the eggs were fresh, they were broken 

 and left on the ground below the nests, but the contents of those eggs which 

 contained a well-formed embryo were eaten. Allowing an average of four eggs 

 for each nest, quite 100 eggs or young Martins must have been destroyed in about 

 a week. 



The female woodpecker was caught, and its gizzard was found to 

 contain a number of pieces of small feathers, some with blood quills 

 attached, which evidently came from the underparts of the young 

 martins. 



House sparrows {Passer domesticus) cause the martins considerable 

 trouble by forcibly ejecting them and appropriating their nests. The 

 martins are usually unable to evict the sparrows after they have taken 

 possession, but Macgillivray (1840) mentions three, apparently au- 

 thentic cases, where a number of martins joined forces and entombed 

 the unwelcome sparrow alive by walling up the entrance to the nest 

 with mud ; this sounds like a fairy tale, however, for it seems hardly 

 likely that the sparrow could not succeed in breaking out before the 

 mud had time to harden. 



Fall. — Macgillivray (1840) says: "Towards the end of September, 

 the House Martins collect into large flocks, which for several days 

 perform long excursions in the neighbourhood of their residence, and 

 are seen settling on the house-tops. At length, in the beginning of 

 October, they disappear, although here and there a few individuals 

 may be seen flying about for some weeks later. Instances of their oc- 



