Notes from Field and Study 



305 



occasions ventured forth. The side door 

 was now my entrance and exit. 



Finally the eggs hatched. Four small, 

 squirming objects now occupied the atten- 

 tion of the father and mother. Such excit- 

 ing sallies after choice tid-bits for their 

 brood as I witnessed — a snap of the beak 

 and a fluttering moth would be captured 

 and carried to the nest. Sometimes when 

 they caught a glimpse of me they would 

 give a chirp and a swallow and the moth 

 was gone. The little ones lost their morsel 

 at such times. 



It was a lovely sight to see the way the 

 pair worked together. Almost every mo- 

 ment they were coming or going, and when 

 not in motion they always sat side by side. 

 I wished that I might bring a few human 

 married couples whom I know to watch the 

 devotion of these tiny mates. 



The little scrawny things grew fatter and 

 fatter, and they piled one on top of another 

 in the little nest, a bundle of feathers with 

 eight bright eyes. One morning as I care- 

 fully walked out under the nest, there was a 

 whir of wings and the four fat fledglings 

 started with one accord (one of them, 

 incidentally, alighted on my head) to 

 join their parents in the tree. They flew 

 perfectly, much to my surprise, as they 

 had never attempted to move before. When 

 I hear of the student aviators who are 

 obliged to practise day after day and 

 often meet their death, I shall think of the 

 little Phoebe birds which flew away one 

 day without knowing how or why. They 

 were called and they responded. After all, 

 science is only an adaptation of nature. 

 The wonder is that men did not accomplish 

 many of the adaptations years ago. 



Later in the day we were walking in the 

 woods when we heard familiar voices. 

 There was the family. The father and 

 mother were calling, calling, and the little 

 ones were following, following. We shall 

 not see them again this year, but next 

 spring Mr. and Mrs. Phoebe will doubtless 

 find a new corner on our porch in which to 

 build a nest, and we will gracefully but 

 rather grudgingly yield the right of pos- 

 session to them. — M. E. Fabens, Georges 

 Mills, N. H. 



Food of Young Purple Martins 



During the summer of 191 7 a gentleman 

 wished me to photograph his Martin- 

 house, towards evening, when the Martins 

 were clustered upon it in some numbers. 

 I was on hand an hour too early and found 

 the adults still coming in with food for 

 the young that had their heads hanging out 

 of nearly every compartment. About 

 fifteen pairs were using the house. The food 

 at this time was composed entirely of 

 dragon-flies, and had been for some time 

 as the owner attested; and the ground 

 below was covered with the bodies 

 accidentally dropped by either young or 

 old during the process of feeding. 



I suppose it to be a well-known fact 

 that the Martins feed their young dragon- 

 flies, but I gathered a few facts that I 

 have not yet seen in print. The adults 

 came from a long distance, and as I was 

 seated part of the time on the roof of a 

 barn level with the height of the Martin- 

 house and only fifteen to twenty feet from 

 it, I had an excellent view of the proceed- 

 ings. The dragon-flies were of half a 

 dozen or more species, I discovered from 

 the dropped specimens, and of two general 

 sizes. The smaller ones were mainly 

 Diplax rubicundula and Leucorhinia intacta 

 while the larger ones were mostly Anax 

 Junius and some that I took to be Epi- 

 aeschna heros; these last with a three-inch 

 body and a wing-spread of over four 

 inches. The birds returning with food 

 had either two or three of the smaller ones 

 or else just one of the larger in their bills. 

 It was a revelation to see a young Martin 

 swallow a three-inch insect with stiff 

 wing^s that spread over four inches, which 

 they did head first, with three 'gulps,' 

 the wings folding back to the body as the 

 insect went down. 



Here are the two most interesting facts 

 noted. First, the large dragon-flies all 

 had their heads broken or pulled from the 

 thorax, but still hanging by a single white 

 ganglion or cord, otherwise in perfect 

 condition, while none of the smaller ones 

 were so mutilated. This was evident not 

 only by the examination of many dropped 



