JULY, 1900. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
191 
them while feeding their young, he noted among other insects 
brought by the parents, large dragon flies measuring fully three 
and one half inches in length. These the youngsters would 
greedily seize and gradually gorge head foremost until only the 
abdomen protruded. By degrees, this too disappeared and the 
little gluttons were then ready for another meal. 
In a neighboring garden last summer a pair of martins took 
possession of a box, but after a time suddenly disappeared, the 
owner found upon investigating that the parents had left behind 
them a brood of four nearly naked nestlings. He took them into 
his house and fed them with insects which they readily took. 
Gradually as they grew older they demanded more attention; 
small insects in sufficiency to satisfy their cravings were difficult 
to procure, so as a last resort this gentleman engaged a couple 
of boys to catch grasshoppers for them and the number of these 
insects they devoured was astonishing — three large grasshoppers 
at a time being none too many. A short time of such procedure 
and the martins would come to him at his whistle and even after 
they were fully fledged and able to fly they would come from 
high where they soared with others of their kind, perch on his 
hand and take the offered morsel. 
I have noted that the purple martin will invariably drive after 
and fight until he succeeds in driving from the vicinity of his 
place of abode, both the barn and the white-bellied swallows, 
whereas the sparrow, robin, wren, oriole and other birds differ- 
ent in habits, but holding to the same localities as the martin are 
left unmolested, so long as they do not assume the aggressive. 
In the care of its own young the martin is very negligent. 
The young martins frequently tumble out of their nests and are 
invariably lost or become a prey to the cat. In times of draught 
many young martins perish and are at times entirely deserted by 
their parents, while from the four or six eggs which the martin 
lays, but three are hatched and reared successfully, on an aver- 
age. When the time of migration arrives, their migratory in- 
stinct seems to conquer their maternal instinct and they frequently 
desert their tender young, leaving them to perish invariably in 
their nests. I have always found when lowering my martin boxes 
that the parents left behind them either eggs or more frequently 
one or two of their young. 
Notes on Some Migfratory Birds, BY J. A. BRANDON— 
The Sapsuckers. ( Sphyropicus variiis.) These birds when 
on their northward journey generally arrive between April 8th 
and 1 2th, in vast numbers over night, and the next day the trees 
both in and out of the city literally swarm with them. They do 
