39 



was obliged to force their mouths open and feed them with 

 grasshoppers and a mixture of bread crumbs and hard-boiled 

 eggs. After a while a man from a neighboring town brought 

 me three more, and a few weeks later I obtained ten more. 

 I treated them in about the same way. After about a week 

 they began to die with something like pneumonia, that is, 

 they would show signs of distress in breathing and have a 

 shortness of breath, like panting. They would live for about 

 three days after these attacks. I wrote to a bird dealer in 

 Boston for advice regarding food, and he sent me a supply of 

 prepared food for soft billed birds. They seemed to thrive 

 much better on this diet, although by this time there were 

 left only about ten. I fed them a very few grasshoppers, 

 but mostly the prepared food and occasionally a few house 

 flies. They became so tame that they would fly up into the 

 trees, and about the buildings, returning to our hand or 

 their box to feed, but one by one they contracted the fatal 

 disease and died like the others. The few birds that escaped 

 during the process lingered about the premises for a time, 

 and I have faint hopes of their returning." 



A disaster of this magnitude to the Purple Martin is to 

 be deplored, especially in a section of country where the suc- 

 cess of every brood is needed to replenish the species. 

 Here are about forty young Martins, most of which perished 

 after being taken from the care of the parent birds, at a 

 time and under such circumstances, that the parents hardly 

 attempted to rear second broods. Now these forty nest- 

 lings would have gone far toward replenishing the former 

 range of the species upon their return north in 1909. 



Mr. Robinson spared no expense and went to much trou- 

 ble in his effort to transplant this colony of Martins, but 

 has probably come so near failure that I shall hesitate to 

 suggest the plan again. 



