Alabama, ipi8. 29 



martin is about seven and one-half inches in length, but the great 

 spread of wings, from fifteen to sixteen inches, makes the bird look 

 very much larger than it really is. 



During summer the martin is a bird of very wide distribution 

 in temperate North America; in autumn it migrates to the tropics, 

 where it spends the winter. There are eight species of this genus 

 of the swallow family, all of them being confined to America. Be- 

 fore the white man discovered and settled the western world, gen- 

 erations of martins had made their annual journeys from their 

 tropical winter homes to the temperate parts of both continents. 

 Their nesting sites were then in hollow trees or in caves. While 

 forests and rocky retreats have not been entirely abandoned by the 

 martins, yet many of them now breed in homes provided for them 

 by man. The red man, a true lover of nature, invited the cheerful 

 martins to remain about his tepee by erecting a pole on which he 

 hung a hollow gourd, for a nesting place. The white successor of 

 the aborigine has adopted his red brother's bird friend, often provid- 

 ing a far more elaborate home for its use. 



Is there anything in the bird world that represents home life 

 and community of interests as well as a colony of martins? Con- 

 tentment, happiness, prosperity are here, and the cheerful, social 

 twitter of the martins and their industrious habits are a continual 

 sermon from the air to their brothers of the earth. The only note 

 of discord in one of these happy colony houses is from the pug- 

 nacious English sparrow, who covets the comfortable homes of the 

 martins and tries to evict the rightful owners and substitute his 

 harsh, disagreeable chatter for their pleasant voices. 



The value of the martin to the human race is very great. The 

 birds are so preeminently aerial that their food necessarily consists 

 of flying insects. Among these may be some of the dreaded Ste- 

 gomyia. It is a well-established fact that this and other species of 

 mosquito convey both malarial and yellow fever. Every mosquito, 

 therefore, that is destroyed by a martin, or, in fact, by any bird, 

 lessens so much the chance of the spread of fever plagues. Human 

 lives are sacrificed every year ; immense sums of money are ex- 

 pended for investigation and prevention of yellow fever, yet in some 

 localities where this scourge is found the martin is not understood 

 and appreciated as it should be. If one human life is saved each 

 year through the destruction of fever-bearing mosquitoes by the 



