thereafter whenever we saw a "bobtailed" Bluebird in our 

 part of town we knew it was one that had visited our Mar- 

 tin house. Three years were spent in an effort to establish 

 the Martins, but each spring the Bluebirds annoyed them so 

 much that the Martins left. Finally my father took the box 

 down. Nearly twenty years elapsed before I decided to try 

 my luck in establishing a colony of these birds. During this 

 time great changes were taking place about our premises. 

 The town which was some blocks to the north of us, spread 

 out until it encroached upon us and enveloped our property 

 with the busy, noisy surroundings, and passing on, crossed 

 the creek south of us and filled a part of a small valley with 

 dwellings and steam works. The Bluebird became scarce, 

 and in 1895, a March blizzard almost annihilated it. Ex- 

 Sheriff Cosgray had about the time my father took down his 

 Martin house, brought four of those unruly, selfish feathered 

 foreigners — the English Sparrow — from New York city and 

 turned them lose in the town, where in a very few years 

 they increased into thousands. 



I had long desired to have a few Martins nest on our 

 premises, but was discouraged from putting up a box be- 

 cause of depredations by the Sparrows, which were plainly 

 evident at bird-houses in other parts of town. 



At last, in the spring of 1896, I decided to erect a box 

 for the Martins and at the same time oust the Sparrows 

 which nested about our buildings which might drive away 

 the former. This bird-house, in which was laid the foun- 

 dation for a large colony of Martins, was a four 

 gabled structure of twenty rooms, a central cupola 

 on top and a chimney on each gable. It was erected 

 thirteen feet high, about eighty feet south of where my fa- 

 ther's box had stood years before. Eleven young birds were 

 reared in this box that year, and in the third year another 

 house was erected to meet the demand for nesting room 

 and the next year still another box was put up making a 

 total of ninety-nine rooms, and the colony continued to in- 

 crease. A happy result since that year is that there is an 



