A Remarkable Martin Roost in the City of Washington 



By HARRY C. OBERHOLSER 



1ATE summer roosts of the Purple Martin are by no means uncommon 

 in the eastern United States. Little attention, however, seems to have 

 been called to this interesting event in the life-history of one of our most 

 familiar birds. Even so long ago as Auduboirs time, small gatherings of this 

 kind were noticed, and the circumstance has been mentioned briefly by a few 

 subsequent authors. Mr. William Brewster, in his 'Birds of the Cambridge 

 Region,' notes a small resort in a maple swamp near Cambridge, Mass., occupied 

 in August, 1869. Dr. J. M. Wheaton, in his 'Birds of Ohio,' speaks of numbers 

 of Martins that roosted under the cornices of buildings in the towns, and the 

 present writer has more recently seen this same phenomenon in the city of 

 Wooster, Ohio. Martin roosts seem to be more numerous in the southeastern 

 states than elsewhere, and Mr. Arthur T. Wayne tells of one in the city of 

 Charleston, S. C, occupied irregularly for several years by many thousand 

 birds, so many, in fact, that their weight often broke limbs from the trees. 

 By far the best account of this phase of Martin life has been given by Mr. 

 Otto Widmann, who had, about the year 1884, exceptional opportunities for 

 observing the Martins roosting in the swampy willow thickets along the 

 Mississippi River, near St. Louis. 



Although thus known in other locaHties, inquiry among local ornithologists 

 has elicited no knowledge of a Martin roost in the District of Columbia prior to 

 1917. During the latter part of the summer of this year, however, great numbers 

 of Martins gathered nightly in one of the city parks, almost within the shadow 

 of the great Capitol building. This park is the more or less wooded tract called 

 'The Mall,' which, one block west of the Botanic Gardens, is crossed by Fourth 

 Street, on which are the double tracks of a street-car line. This street is here 

 lined on both sides at the curb by a row of elms, 30 to 50 feet in height, and 

 beyond the sidewalk also by a row of European maples of somewhat smaller 

 size; while oaks, horse-chestnuts, sophoras, and other shade trees are scattered 

 about in adjacent parts of the park. 



The Martins were first noticed at this roost on August 5, although for a week 

 previous the birds had been seen in the evenings, flying in this direction. 

 They were last observed here on September 9, a cool, cloudy day, and they all 

 disappeared during the following twenty-four hours in the rapidly falling tem- 

 perature, which, on the night of September 10, touched 40°, accompanied in 

 places by a light frost. The number of Martins that frequented this roost 

 fluctuated from time to time, ranging from about 2,500 on September 9 to 

 about 12,000 at the height of activity on August 21 ; but it is safe to say that the 

 usual number was between 7,000 and 8,000. This, of course, included a large 

 proportion of birds from a distance, since it is far in excess of the summer 

 Martin population of the region about Washington, there being but few breed- 



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