22 



parted, I have examined the contents of the debris left be- 

 hind, and find from a fourth to a whole pint of remains of 

 insects, undigested. A predominance in this dirt is the hard 

 wing-shell or case of a small black beetle we see in the air 

 in the morning and evening, and sometimes throughout the 

 day. In a teaspoonful of this dirt there are from 200 to 500 

 of these little wing coverings, and these, too, form only a 

 small part of the debris left in the nest room — the bulk be- 

 ing undeterminable, and on the whole represents only a 

 portion of the excrement of the young, much of it being 

 carried away by the parent birds. 



It is just such insects as these that the birds are cap- 

 turing when we see them soaring, wheeling, darting and 

 gliding to and fro, high in the air. They spend about six- 

 teen hours, every day, in search of food. It undoubtedly re- 

 quires hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of insects to 

 feed an ordinary brood of Martins and sustain them and 

 their parents until the time arrives late in August, for them 

 to take their departure. 



Think of what this means to a community, and pause to 

 realize the service rendered mankind by only one species of 

 insectivorous birds. 



In the summer of 1907, there were nesting in and around 

 the town of Waynesburg, between 200 and 250 pairs of 

 Purple Martins. The writer made several visits to the var- 

 ious colonies and found fair sized broods flourishing. Three 

 or four seemed to be the rule. Now here was about 800 

 young, which hatched between June first and fifteenth, and 

 remained with us until after the middle of August— over two 

 months— and between 400 and 500 parent birds which remain- 

 ed nearly five months; in all over 1,200 insect-hunters, to 

 live and thrive on these most destructive pests. To express 

 the number of insects consumed by the Waynesburg colonies 

 alone would demand a long line of figures; and from what I 

 am led to believe, after years of observation and examina- 

 tion of the debris from the nest rooms, it would require the 

 filling of a bushel measure, at least a few times, to meet the 

 demand of a season's nesting at my own colonies. 



