THE PURPLE MARTIN 



The second beakful brought the Sparrow home in a hurry. The 

 Martin flew back to his place on the wire and executed a little tri- 

 umphal demonstration. He plumed his feathers with an exag- 

 gerated swagger, that looked exactly as if he were saying: 



"Oh, didn't I fix you that time !" He sprang straight up from 

 the wire and rapidly settled again ; he chattered angrily, though I 

 never before heard him make a sound when on sentinel duty. He 

 taught that Sparrow a lesson, for that was the last time for weeks 

 that she entered the Martin box. She would dash at the Martins 

 and threaten them outside, but she seemed to have learned that 

 there was such a thing as the besieged retreating and attacking 

 the stronghold of the enemy. 



Last year six pairs of Martins raised two broods on our wind- 

 mill. They averaged four, creamy-white, oblong oval eggs to the 

 nest. After the first brood had become full grown and self-sup- 

 porting, still they all forced into that box for night. When the 

 second brood was hatched, and joined the family on wing, they 

 could not all crowd into the box, so the elders slept on top of it 

 in a narrow space beneath the platform of the mill. By October, 

 then, our twelve Martins of spring, allowing four eggs to the 

 nest and two broods to the season, had multiplied to more than 

 forty. The Sparrows must have destroyed a good many, for I 

 never was able to count more than thirty at one time during the 

 fall. 



However many there were, one thing was sure : they all stayed 

 in or upon that box at night. By sundown they gathered from 

 the forests and the river and began the preliminaries of settling. 

 For a full hour they chattered, jabbered and circled in wide 

 sweeps of flight around the mill. At first they would fly in a 

 great circle almost out of sight. Then narrowing by almost im- 

 perceptible degrees after an hour, and sometimes longer on wing, 

 they would circle closely about the box and at last one would en- 



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