When the birds once come, get settled and show a liking for their surround- 

 ings and their host, it takes a lot of snubbing to drive them away. Home love 

 is the growth of a day with the birds, and they are averse to breaking domestic 

 ties. It takes a combination of cats, predatory small boys and coolness in a once 

 warm entertainer to force the summer guests to decamp. . 



How to get the birds and how to hold them are questions easily answered. 

 I think that the average human will take quickly and kindly to the companion- 

 ship of the white-bellied swallow and the purple martin. The swallow will stay 

 with you for a long time after you have begun to treat him as no triend should 

 be treated. 



Here is a brutal story of the way I once abused the patience and the hearts 

 of a pair of white-bellied swallows. I was a boy and I didn't know any better ; 

 moreover I was easing my conscience with the thought that I was doing some- 

 thing ''for scientific purposes" — an excuse which has made many a youngster 

 usually with his parents' consent, a nest robber and a slayer of helpless innocents. 



T put a starch box with a hole in the end of it on the roof of the parental 

 homestead. Within a week a pair of white-bellied swallows had made in it their 

 fine, feather-lined nest. In another week there were five eggs in the nest. I 

 took them. The swallows still hung about the place and in a few days there 

 were four more eggs in the nest. I took these too. Then another wait, and four 

 more eggs were laid. I took them also. Another week went by and there were 

 three eggs in the nest. These I left. The devoted swallows finally led forth 

 three healthy young ones. That was my last nest-robbing experience. It gives 

 perhaps some idea of what some birds will stand rather than desert a place 

 where they have made a nest and which they quickly have learned to call home. 



The white-bellied swallow is a great insect eater. It likes mosquitos and 

 flies as well as a boy likes watermelon. This bird is frequently and properly 

 called the tree swallow, for along the banks of rivers which overflow in the 

 spring it nests in great colonies in holes in flood-killed trees. The feathers of 

 its back when the sun strikes them are a glittering green ; its under parts are 

 snow white. It likes the companionship of man, and there is no reason why man 

 should not claim it as a neighbor each succeeding year. A starch box, or any 

 box of the same size, with a doorway hole in the end the size of a silver half- 

 dollar, makes an ideal home for this swift-winged bird. 



The purple martin is credited, like the kingbird, with holding eternal hatred 

 of the crow and the hawk. A year or two ago on an Indiana farm I found a 

 colony of martins nesting in a palace of a house on the top of a post midway 

 between the chicken coop and the cornfield. I asked the farmer's wife why 

 she wanted the martins for neighbors. She replied, 'They are cheerful and 

 pretty ; they eat insects and they won't let a crow or a hawk come near the 

 place." These be reasons enough perhaps for making friends of the martins. 



A martin house can be made of any size with assurance that if the surround- 



679 



