25 



Fig. 28. — Martin barrel. 



may be necessary. No pole is likely to be too high for martins. 

 They seem to prefer a height of 20 or 30 feet. These birds fre- 

 quently have nested in quiet places among trees and quite near 

 houses, even in nesting boxes on poles on the roofs of wooden 

 buildings or high city blocks, but they will not accept hidden 

 nesting places where they have to fly in among the branches of 

 leafy trees, and they seem to come most 

 readily to a bird house situated in an open 

 yard or on a wide lawn. They seem to 

 prefer low ground to high ground, and al- 

 ways like the neighborhood of water. There- 

 fore an open river valley suits them, but 

 people not having these advantages need 

 not despair, as martins often have nested 

 on high ground, but rarely, I believe, far 

 from water. A drinking and bathing foun- 

 tain for the birds with running water might 

 help to induce them to settle where other 

 water is absent. A martin house may be 

 made of any strong barrel (Fig. 28), and 

 I have seen such boxes occupied for many years by these birds. 

 The bottom of each entrance hole may be made level with the 

 floor of its compartment, to facilitate cleaning out and to allow 

 any water that may drive in to run out again, but it is well to 

 have a gallery or veranda under the upper openings and over- 

 hanging the lower. This and the projecting eaves should shed 

 most of the rain. 



The entrance holes may be made 2| inches in diameter if 

 square, or 2^ inches if round. 



Mr. J. Warren Jacobs of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, who 

 probably has had more experience in building martin houses 

 than any one else now living, recommends making each apart- 

 ment 6 inches square and 7 inches high. Any box about this 

 size may be used for the apartments, and all may be backed by 

 a square box running up the center of the barrel into which a 

 square pole will fit. The barrel may be attached to the pole by 

 two angle irons and roofed with zinc. Every martin house 

 should be well painted outside but not inside, with two or three 

 coats of good white or light-colored paint. Dark-colored houses 



