SWALLOWS: PURPLE MARTIN 
469 
twenty feet from the ground, with a flaring tin collar to protect it 
from prowling cats. Some interesting experiments have been tried 
in the effort to establish Martin colonies in new localities, the best 
way apparently being to secure nestlings, as they can be successfully 
raised by hand. Wherever they can be induced to nest, they will not 
only drive off all marauding crows and hawks, but their sociable chatter 
and interesting communal life will afford endless entertainment for 
their favored hosts. 
On their fall migrations the Purple Martins, like other swallows, 
gather in large numbers in some suitable locality to roost. In the city 
of Washington—in which a nesting colony for a time occupied a house 
near the Capitol—in August, 1918, as many as 35,000 Martins were 
estimated in a roost covering thirteen trees bordering the sidewalk 
opposite the Red Cross Building. 
On July 25, when they had settled down for the night, they were 
disturbed by a thunderstorm. As the night superintendent of the 
Red Cross Building reported, after every brilliant flash of lightning 
followed by heavy thunder they rushed from the trees in great clouds, 
flew wildly about for a short time, and then settled into the roost again. 
Since 1918, the Martins have changed their roost several times, but 
for a term of years have occupied the elms over the New Jersey Avenue 
car tracks, in some seasons during the whole of July and August and 
the early part of September, their maximum numbers being estimated 
as forty thousand. 
Additional Literature. — Dearborn, Ned, \1. S. Dept. Agr., Farmers’ Bull. 
609, 1914 (bird houses).— Dutcher, William, Educational Leaflet 13, Nat. Assoc. 
Audubon Soc.— Finley, W. L., and I., Condor, XXVI, 6-9,1924 (changing habits).— 
Henshaw, H. W., Biol. Surv., U. S. Dept. Agr., Circ. 57, 1907 (eating cotton boll 
weevils).— Howell, A. II., Biol. Surv., U. S. Dept. Agr., Bull. 29, 9-11, 1907.— 
Jacobs, J. W., The Story of a Martin Colony, 1906 (methods of attracting, etc.).— 
McAtee, W. L., U. S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 715, 1918 (attracting birds).— McConnell, 
T. L., Bird-Lore, XXIII, 75-77, 1921 (houses).— Oberholser, II. C., Bird-Lore, 
XIX, 315-317, 1917; XXI, 96-99, 1919; XXIV, 351, 1922; XXVI, 416, 1924 (Wash¬ 
ington roosts).— Stuart, F. A., Bird-Lore, XXI, 92-95, 1919.— Taverner, P. A., 
Wilson Bull., XVIII, 87-92, 1906 (roost).— Trakton, G. H., Methods of Attracting 
Birds, 14, 22, 32-40, 1910.— Whitney, T. IL, Wilson Bull., XXXVII, 65-72, 
1925 (houses).— Ziegler, G. F., Jr., Auk, XL, 431-436, 1923. 
MAGPIES, JAYS, CROWS, etc.: Family Corvidae 
Our Corvidae are large, strongly marked birds with stout bills 
and feet, nostrils densely covered with long tufts of close pressed 
bristly feathers (except in Pinyon Jay) and wings equalling or much 
shorter than tail, both rounded; the wings with ten fully developed 
primaries. 
