The Purple Martin yPrugnesuHs) 



By W. Leon Dawson 



Length : Eight inches. 



Range: United States and southern Canada, south to central Mexico. 



Food: Mostly injurious insects. 



I'Vom time ininieniorial the garrulous Martin has enjoyed the hospitality 

 of man. Before the advent of the Whites the Indian is said to have prepared for 

 the yearly return of the Martin by trimming the houghs from some saplings hard 

 by the wigwam, and "leaving the prongs a foot or two in length, on each of which 

 he hung a gourd or calabash properly hollowed out" for the birds' accommoda- 

 tion. The white men were quick to follow the example set. and for many years 

 Martin houses, some of them quite ornate, have been a familiar feature of village 

 and country places. These artificial quarters are exclusively used in the prairie 

 states, but here, where timber has been so abundant, a considerable proportion 

 have either never abandoned the ancestral fashion of nesting in hollow trees or 

 old Woodpecker holes, or else have been driven back to it by the English Sparrows. 

 The Martins have suffered much at the hands of these notorious pests, and their 

 great reduction in numbers throughout the state is doubtless due largely to this 

 cause. 



Arriving about the middle of March, in the southern part of the state, and 

 from the first to the middle of April in the northern tier of counties, the Mar- 

 tins are apt to wait quietly about their houses until the weather settles. Cold 

 days are spent altogether within doors, and a cold snap at this season is sure 

 to decimate the species, for the bird feeds exclusively upon insects. Their food 

 is not confined to the smaller insects, as in the case of the other Swallows, but 

 bees, wasps, dragon-flies, and some of the larger predatory beetles are consumed. 



The birds mate soon after arrival. Old nests are renovated and new mate- 

 rials are brought in, — straw, string, and trash for the bulk of the nest, and abun- 

 dant feathers for lining. They are very sociable birds, and a voluble flow of 

 small talk is kept up by them during the nesting season. The .'^ong, if such it 

 may be called, is a succession of pleasant warblings and gurglings, interspersed 

 with harsh rubbing and creaking notes. A particularly mellow coo. coo, coo re- 

 curs from time to time, and any of the notes seem to require considerable effort 

 on the part of the performer. 



Purple Martins are not only brave in defense of their young, but often 

 go a little out of the way to pick a quarrel with strangers. Hawks are set upon 

 fearlessly and driven out of bounds, and the birds' presence in the barnyard 

 is appreciated on this account. There is besides a running fight to be kept up 

 with Wrens, Bluebirds, and English Sparrows, for possession of the home box. 

 So far as I have been able to observe, however, the birds are not molested by 

 the sturdier Tree Swallows, as is said to be the case in New England. In North- 



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