90 BIRDS 



up the old, weatherbeaten pole. Alas! He painted over 

 every precious mark. You may be sure the surprise re- 

 coiled upon him like a boomerang when the wrathful inn- 

 keeper returned. However, the martins continue to come 

 back to their old home year after year and rear their 

 broods on little heaps of leaves in every room in the house, 

 which is the cheering fact of the sad story. 



These glossy, blue-black iridescent swallows, grayish 

 white underneath, the largest of their graceful tribe, have 

 always been great favorites. Even the Indians in the 

 Southern states used to hang gourds for them to nest in 

 about their camps — a practice continued by the Negroes 

 aroimd their cabins to this day. Strangely enough these 

 birds which nested and slept in hollow trees before the com- 

 ing of the white men, were among the first to take ad- 

 vantage of his presence. Now, in the eastern United 

 States, at least, the pampered darlings of luxury positively 

 refuse to live where people do not put up houses for their 

 comfort. In the sparsely settled West, however, they still 

 condescend to live in trees, but only when they must, Uke 

 the chimney-swifts, which, by the way, are not related. 

 People persist in calling them chimney swallows, which is 

 precisely what they are not. Not even the Httle house 

 wren has adapted itself so quickly to civilized men's homes 

 as the swift and purple martin. 



Intelligent people, who are only just beginning to realize 

 what birds do for us and how very much more they might 

 be induced to do, are putting up boxes for the martins, not 

 only near their own houses, that the birds may rid the air 

 of mosquitoes, but in their gardens and orchards that in- 

 calculable numbers of injurious pests in the winged stage 

 may be destroyed. When martins return to us in spring 



