breeding at Olyrnpia, but tbe range of P. hesperia, in relation to P. purpurea, is not yet 

 sufficiently worked out. 



Dr. P. L. Hatcb gives tbe following note on the present bird in Minnesota :— " When 

 the long winters of Minnesota have gone, so that the snows have disappeared from the 

 thickets and corners of the fences, and tiny Coleopterous insects begin to appear in the 

 air, even then still chilly, the Purple Martin may appear any forenoon approaching 

 twelve o'clock. It usually does so in company with greater numbers of the White- 

 bellied Swallows. In 1870 they both came on the 17th of April, and after skirmishing 

 vigorously about for an hour, and finding no food along the river, departed as abruptly 

 as they came. On the 22nd they returned in augmented numbers, and went no more 

 away for that season. The species is nearly universally distributed over the State. It 

 leaves the whole country almost simultaneously between the 20th and 25th of August, in 

 company with the White-bellied Swallows. Years of record show that they have left the 

 vicinity of Minneapolis either on the 23rd or 21th of that month." 



Mr. Washburn, when referring to this species in his notes gathered on his second 

 trip to the Red River Valley, says : — " This species occurs about Mille Lacs, where 

 the farmers provide boxes for them. The great majority, however, nest with 

 the Gulls on an island called Spirit Island by the Indians, lying about two miles 

 from the south-eastern shore of Lake Mille Lacs. Here large numbers lay their 

 eggs in the sand — in the crevices and fissures of the rocks, and serve as allies in 

 driving away the Ravens and other birds disposed to prey upon the eggs and young 

 of the Gulls." 



Throughout Illinois and Indiana it is plentiful in summer, and the same may 

 be said of all the New England States. Mr. Stearns, in his ' New England Bird- 

 Life,' writes as follows : — " A common summer resident, almost universally nesting 

 nowadays in the boxes provided for its accommodation, or equivalent retreats about 

 buildings. The distribution of the species, though in nowise dependent upon faunal 

 considerations, is influenced by other conditions which cause the bird to be irregularly 

 dispersed in New England, and rare or even wanting in many localities where one would 

 expect to find it. I am inclined to think that here and elsewhere in the United States 

 the Martin is not, on the whole, so very numerous as we suppose. Wherever it occurs, 

 the size of the bird, its striking colour, the noise it makes, and its activity and domes- 

 ticity conspire to render it an object so conspicuous that we unconsciously acquire an 

 exaggerated idea of its general abundance. It, moreover, appears to be somewhat on the 

 decrease in New England, from some cause not well understood. Its loquacity is an 

 annoyance to many persons, and hospitality is frequently denied ; though the bird is 

 certainly a serviceable one in the work of holding insects in check — vastly more so than 

 its inveterate enemy, the European Sparrow. The Martin originally built in hollows of 

 trees, as the White-bellied Swallow still does, but is now seldom, if ever, known to nest 

 except in artificial receptacles. It reaches us late in April or early in May, and leaves 

 early in September. Two broods are commonly reared, the first set of eggs being laid in 



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