40 



JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The Purple Martins, as far as I know 

 always nest in houses provided for 

 them by man and always in colonies 

 whose number is proportioned to the 

 size of the house provided for them. 

 Before such conveniences were obtain- 

 able they must have nested in hollow 

 trees like the Tree Swallow. Martins 

 are very voluble and talkative to each 

 otiier. They usually arrive at Bangor 

 from the South about May 5th, seem- 

 ingly coming during the night as I 

 have always noticed them for the first 

 time each season in the morning when 

 their chatter as they perched at the 

 entrances to their houses and 

 sought to dispossess the marauding 

 House Sparrows would attract my at- 

 tention to them. Nest building begins 

 soon after their arrival but it is well on 

 to the 5th of June before they have 

 deposited their eggs. I have seen fresh 

 Martin's eggs as late as the 4th of 

 July, whether of a second litter or not 

 I am unable to say. 



The eggs of all the Swallow tribe, so 

 far as I am aware, hatch in about 13 or 

 14 days. In the fall everybody has 

 seen vast concourses of Swallows scat- 

 tered along the roadsides, perched upon 

 the roofs of barns and on the tele- 

 graph wires, preparing for the south- 

 ern migration and busily discussing 

 the probabilities of a successful flight. 

 The Cliff, Barn and Bank Swallows 

 seem to intermingle most freely to- 

 gether in these flocks. The Tree Swal- 

 lows and Purple Martins seem to pre- 

 fer oftener to form assemblies of their 

 own species. 



As our Swallows are insectivarous 

 and common in most localities an in- 

 calculable amount of good is done by 

 them in destroying injurious insects. 

 As they take their prey while on the 

 wing to a large extent the insect food 

 consists chiefly of flies, mosquitoes, 

 gnats, beetles and similar insects. 



ORA W. KNIGHT. 



SOME WINTER BIRDS OF THE 

 CUMBERLAND SHORE. 



Read Before the Me. Ornithological So- 

 ciety at Lewiston, Dec. 22, 1900. 



To the bird lover there is always 

 promise in a new locality, and when, 

 in the fall of '97, I had opportunity to 

 spend the winter on the Cumberland 

 shore of Nova Scotia, the birds at- 

 tracted a large share of my attention. 

 Not that the species were many — the 

 locality and season of the year forbade 

 that — but some were new to me and 

 others that were familiar enough seem- 

 ed strangely out of place on that blonk 

 and cliff-bound shore. 



Most of the time was spent at RiA'er 

 Hebert and Shulee on one shore and st 

 Parrsboro on the other. Both shores 

 are rugged and cliff-lined, in many 

 places wooded to the edge. The growth 

 is mainly spruce, along the shore. To 

 me an especially noticeable plant was 

 the little mountain cranberry. At 

 Shulee it was especially abundant, lit- 

 erally covering the ground. In my 

 walks in search of birds, nothing im- 

 pressed me more than the lack of 

 birds' nests. Here one cannot walk 

 along the road for any distance with- 

 out seeing nests, and in a cutting 

 where stubs have been left standing it 

 is rare to find many that do not con- 

 tain the holes of woodpeckers, chick- 

 adees or other cavity nesting birds. 

 There, one can travel miles along the 

 road and not see a nest, and I searched 

 several cuttings where suitable stubs 

 were numerous and failed to find a sin- 

 gle nesting hole. Yet chickdees were 

 abundant and woodpeckers not rare. 

 Evidently X failed to find their favored 

 sites. The first week in December was 

 clear and cold, with less than three 

 inches of snow on the ground. The 

 first bird I saw was a crow, and they 



