The Purple Martin 
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emies, they migrate boldly by daylight instead 
of at night as the timid little vireos and warblers 
do. During every day the swallows are with 
us they must consume billions and trillions of 
blood-sucking insects that would pester other 
animals beside ourselves. Think of the mos- 
quito bites alone that they prevent! Every 
one of us is greatly in their debt. 
Male and female swallows are dressed so 
nearly alike that you can scarcely tell one from 
the other. Both twitter merrily but neither 
really sings. 
THE PURPLE MARTIN 
There is a picturesque old inn beside a post 
road in New Jersey with a five-storied mar- 
tin house set up on a pole above its quaint 
swinging sign. For over thirty years a record 
was kept on the pole showing the dates of the 
coming and going of the martins in April and 
September, which did not vary by more than 
two or three days during all that time. The 
inn-keeper locked up in his safe every night the 
registers on which were entered the arrivals 
and departures of his human guests, but he 
valued far more the record of his bird visitors 
which interested everybody who stopped at his 
inn. 
