Vermont Bird Club 13 



EXPERIENCE WITH PURPLE MARTINS IN BRATTLEBORO. 



W. C. HORTOX. 



About twenty-five years ago, there were several colonies of purple 

 Martins, Progne subis, in Brattleboro. The troublesome English spar- 

 rows became so plentiful and occupied the martin houses so early in 

 the spring that the martins were driven out of all their homes except 

 but one. This house was taken down by the owner as he became 

 entirely out of patience in trying to keep out the English sparrows. I 

 purchased the house and moved it to my home about a half mile away. 

 I painted and fixed up the house, which had twenty-eight tenements, 

 and named it "The Castle." I put it up on a pole April 29, 1899. May 

 1st the martins came and occupied it at once. The English sparrows 

 came also but I began shooting them as fast as they came. I kept 

 this up until the martins began to incubate, then the sparrows did not 

 trouble them very much as the martins occupied nearly all the tene- 

 ments. From that time on every year until June, 1903, I was obliged 

 to fight the Englisn sparrows by shooting them in order to protect my 

 colony of martins. The martins seemed to know that the shooting was 

 not to frighten them. On the average we had about 35 to 40 martins 

 coming every spring about the first of May. When they were ready to 

 migrate to the sunny south in August, young and old numbered about 

 eighty birds. 



In June, 1903, came that cold and chilly rain of two weeks' duration 

 which was disastrous to all insectivorous birds, all insects being so 

 benumbed with cold that they could not fly. Then the parent martins 

 could not get food for their young or even for themselves. I found 

 thirty young and several old martins dead in the nests of the Castle 

 and 12 eggs not hatched. What birds remained alive deserted the 

 Castle for the rest of the year. This was a great disappointment to 

 me. The next spring I watched for the remaining martins to return 

 to the Castle. One morning the welcome note of the martin was heard. 

 Three male martins were on the Castle. They stayed about a week 

 or more waiting for their mates to come. Every year the male martins 

 came first and the females later by one or two weeks. In the course 

 of a week three female martins came but acted frightened when they 

 looked into the empty tenements of the Castle. They seemed to remem- 

 ber the horrors of their disaster the year before. They did not light 

 on the' Castle at all. The male birds apparently tried to persuade them 

 to stay but they would not and flew away, never to return. The male 

 birds, after waiting a week or more in the Castle flew away and they 

 too did not return to stay. I saw the martins several times that sum- 



