fee AUDUBON BULLETIN 
Published Quarterly by the 
ee Ns Orla Au DU BON: 80.6 DK TY 
2001 NorTH CLARK STREET, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
Number 56 December, 1945 
Martin Houses 
By R. E. MEANY 
IN 1941 I became interested in purple martins, purchased a standard com- 
mercial house with 24 rooms, and hopefully erected it on a 20-foot pole on 
the rear of my lot. The location was about 50 feet from our house and 
fairly open except for a small elm tree perhaps 25 feet from the bird house. 
Although there is no open water in the vicinity, which is considered quite 
an advantage in attracting martins, yet there are several colonies in a half- 
dozen large houses on the grounds of Ridge Country Club, a mile to the 
west, and of course there are many individual colonies of these birds scat- 
tered throughout Beverly Hills. 
Knowing that there were plenty of martins in the vicinity, I felt that 
all I had to do was put up the house and wait for the birds to come. And 
it was quite a long wait. For three years I put up that martin house each 
spring, and although I got a few nibbles, I failed to land a single martin 
during that time. Most of the difficulty was due to the English sparrows 
who drove off any martins coming down to have a look. 
After three years with no results, I decided to build a martin house 
from which English sparrows could be excluded. If these undesirable pests 
could be prevented from nesting, the martins would have a chance to get 
started, and, once started, they could hold their own with the sparrows. 
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