26 THE AUDUBON? Big LL bale 

Purple Martin in Winter 
ENE STRATTON-PORTER once wrote about having seen a purple 
martin near her home in winter; I think it wasin the month of Febru- 
ary, but amnotcertain. She thought it had come north to see if its sum- 
mer home was all right. I have had a similar experience twice within the 
last four years. Once while I was putting up a new tree swallow house 
(Feb. 24, 1923) I saw a bird flying slowly toward me in a southerly 
direction, and as it was only about seventeen feet from the ground at 
the time, I had no difficulty in identifying it. It flew directly over my 
head and kept turning its head from side to side as though it was on 
the lookout for a new home. 
Yesterday evening at twenty minutes after three o’clock I was watch- 
ing from a window when I saw a bird with the characteristic shape 
and flying movements of a purple martin, flying toward me. I gained a 
vantage point from where I could view the approaching bird. 
It flew about fifteen feet above the ground so that I had a’good view 
of it. I could see the short stream-line body with its forked tail and the 
steel blue plumage. 
The steady movement of its wings also helped me to identify it, for it 
was flying slowly in a westerly direction. 
I have studied birds as a hobby since 1918, and I began to keep a note- 
book in 1922, since when I have kept it quite regularly day after day, 
although I missed jotting everything, sometimes for several days. 
However, I have always tried to list the birds I would see each day. 
During the month of January, 1925, I saw the following birds in and 
about the order in which they are listed: red-headed woodpeckers, 
red-bellied woodpeckers, several downy woodpeckers, one _ hairy 
woodpecker, several flickers, bluejays and grackles, in flocks, juncos, 
wrens, cardinals, titmice, several sparrow hawks, one red-tailed hawk 
and two other large ones that I could not identify, a screech owl, robins 
at intervals, and one time I estimated a flock of over fifty robins in a 
field two blocks from home. I also saw a gull, a large flock of wild 
ducks, goldfinches, meadow larks in abundance, and bluebirds. 
The purple martins begin to arrive here about March 28, and have 
done so since I first began to notice them in 1921. 
CHESTER L. CoNLEy, 
Metropolis, Illinois. 
