46 



It is the purpose of the author to compile three or more annual 

 supplementary papers to "Gleanings No. 5," giving the results of the 

 efforts to establish home colonies of martins, by purchasers of bird 

 houses. This issue is mailed free with each copy of "Gleanings No. 5". 



Photographs, suitable for halftone reproduction, and items of 

 interest to lovers of the Purple Martin, are solicited from all sources. 

 The writer especially desires photos and full reports from purchasers 

 of martin houses. Full credit will be given for all such material used 

 in future supplementary papers. 



Martin houses were purchased by persons residing in twelve 

 different states and the District of Columbia. In eight states— Maine, 

 Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Michigan, Illinois 

 and Wisconsin success crowned the efforts of nearly all those making 

 an attempt to establish the birds. Reports were not returned from all 

 the purchasers residing in Massachusetts, Xew York and Xew Jersey, 

 but in the seven reports coming to hand from these states and one each 

 from New I Iampshire and District of Columbia, birds were not reported 

 as breeding, although in a number of cases martins visited the new 

 boxes. 



About seventy per cent, of the martin houses sent out this year 

 were occupied by the birds during the summer, hatching and success- 

 fully rearing broods. So large a percentage I consider good, inasmuch 

 as many of the houses were put up in localities where the martins were 

 seen only as migrants. 



.Much correspondence came to hand from other sources, and a 

 more or less thorough examination of the evidence contained in this 

 correspondence, together with that contained in the reports, show the 

 birds to be sparingly, but pretty generally, distributed over sections 

 of the Eastern States where it was thought to be almost extinct. There 

 seems to be several flourishing colonics in western and southern Maine 

 and northern Xew York, but in the other Xew England States and 

 eastern Xew York only few correspondents mention breeding birds. 

 Many transient companies of the birds, however, were seen, some of 

 which visited new bird houses for a few hours, then departed. 



The reader is referred to Mr. Win. C. Ilorton's report of his ex- 

 periment in liberating two pairs of adult birds at his Brattleboro, \t., 

 home in [908. ("Gleanings No. 5," pages 34-36.) This experiment, 

 Mr. Morton thinks, was partly successful, as he reports a lone martin 

 at one of his bird bouses during the first week in June, !<)<)<). 



