Auk, XIV, Oct., 1897, cb.v»7-2. 
P ur pl e Martins (Progne sub is) Breeding in Electric Art-light Caps. 
During a recent visit to Vergennes, Vt., I noticed that many pairs of 
Purple Martins were nesting in the caps suspended over the electric 
street lamps in the heart of that rural city. Indications of the same pro- 
clivity to utilize the street lamps for domestic purposes were shown by 
Purple Martins that I watched near North Adams, Mass., in 1895, and 
Mr. Brewster tells me that he found a pair of these birds breeding in a 
similar situation in Colebrook, N. H., in 1896. Probably many of the 
readers of ‘The Auk’ who live in a Martin region are familiar with this 
nesting habit of the Martin, though I do not remember to have seen any 
mention of it in print. The late Frank Bolles (‘ Boston Post,’ Feb. 3, 
1891) facetiously remarked that the House Sparrow’s propensity to build 
its nest and rear its young “on the edge of Hades” (viz., in electric- 
lamp reflectors) was sufficient evidence that it was the offspring of evil and 
justly under the ban of the Commonwealth. I had always deemed this a 
just count against the Sparrow, until I discerned the same disposition in 
our own favorite Martin ! I hope the lamp-tenders of Vergennes discrim- 
inate between Martins and Sparrows in their daily visits to the lamps. 
Walter Faxon, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. 
