26 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
not exchange with his neighbors for 
fear of desertion, but he can get martins 
from people at a distance to rear by 
hand, or if the parents are taken also 
and are moved to a district far beyond 
their ordinary flight for food, it would 
seem that they might be induced to stay 
by their young. I imagine the 20 miles 
noted above hardly removed them from 
the immediate neighborhood of their 
foraging grounds, and that while the 
birds naturally fly long distances, a re¬ 
moval beyond a hundred miles would 
have taken them out of their usual hunt¬ 
ing grounds sufficiently to insure the 
parents staying by their brood. 
The other way to attract martins is 
to set up your box and hope against 
hope that some pair will come along 
house-hunting and look favorably on the 
apartments provided. This was the 
method of one of my correspondents', 
Mr. Frederick Wahl of 591 Frederick 
Ave., Milwaukee. He says, “It took me 
a number of years even to get a single 
pair of martins here. Since then they 
have increased, until I should judge 50 
to 100 pairs have raised broods within 
a mile circuit. I have watched and had 
the birds for forty years, ever since I 
was a small boy, wherever I lived." He 
speaks of four of his neighbors having 
respective^ 7, 8, 12 and 20-room houses, 
besides many ethers, all comfortably 
filled with the birds, he being the pio¬ 
neer in this locality. “These houses are 
all within a few blocks of my place, and 
there are quite a few large colonies that 
I know of in various portions of the 
city, proving their popularity. A person 
on the South Side has a 36-room house, 
which seemed comfortably filled with 
martins when I was there la^t }ear. A 
large colony is at Grove and \\ alkei 
Streets, the accommodations in all the 
houses there being for 35 to 50 pairs. 
A house on a telegraph pole in Juneau 
Park had about 4 pairs with families in 
it this July. I had 14 pairs nesting at 
one time on a building at rear of 59 
Oneida St., where I was for about nine 
years. One year I had 3 pairs nesting 
in my attic in little boxes, with peep 
holes in them, and I have watched them 
nest building, breeding on the 
heard the pleased notes when the eggs 
hatched, and watched the whole feeding 
process, until the young could fly. This 
lot raised twelve young. The birds 
seem to have gone for the year, altho 
yesterday, August 28, a bunch flew 
through my yard,—to take a last look at 
their home before their long flight 
South." 
Mr. Wahl, the Director of the Pub¬ 
lic Museum, gives the usual date of de¬ 
parture for the South as near August 
21, but this season was so late in start¬ 
ing that it is no wonder that the young 
would be longer in getting strong 
enough to make their long flight south¬ 
ward. In this connection, the bank 
swallows were more than a week late in 
starting their nesting at the great colony 
at Bay View, Milwaukee. 
Mr. Wahl further states that in 1908 
the martins held an apparent convention 
in his vicinity. He estimated them to 
be from 15 to 20,000 birds. At that 
time “the telegraph and ’phone wires 
were covered with them for blocks. 
Some of the young birds got into chim¬ 
neys, and were found dead, when fur¬ 
naces and pipes were cleaned later. In 
an earlier letter of August 7, he esti¬ 
mates for the city “the number of pairs 
of purple martins at least 300 pairs. 
There are so many bird houses up in 
this locality that there are not enough 
birds to go around. Years ago, the 
