6 THE AUDUBON “Bib Ere 
In the 11 years for which I have records 72 different persons had 
martin houses at one time or another, but only 66 of them were fortunate 
enough to have martins nesting during that time. The population changes 
year by year were as follows: 
Year Pairs Locations Year Pairs Locations 
1936 193 29 1942 305 40 
1937 151 28 1943 VAS 36 
1938 212 29 1944 330 35 
1939 ASG ai 1945 Dol 36 
1940 266 35 1946 304 383 
1941 292 38 
The conclusion I draw from these figures is that purple martins do 
increase from year to year under favorable conditions. A hot and dry 
year will result in a drop in nesting pairs the following year. The dry 
year 1936 brought a drop of 42 nesting pairs in 1937. The low number 
of nesting pairs in 1946 (304) I attribute to the long cold spring of 1945 
which kept the insect population down, causing the young birds to starve 
and leaving fewer young birds to take up nests. The large total for 1945 
(331) was probably brought about by the cold weather north of here, 
causing the birds to take up nesting here instead of farther north. 
&. Shears 
THE WILD DUCK POPULATION of continental North America for the year 
1946 was estimated at 80 million birds. That would be about a half a 
duck per person for our human population. There were two million duck 
stamps sold to hunters for that season, or an average of 40 birds to each 
hunter. The daily bag limit of seven authorized each hunter, each day 
of the season, to kill his half-duck, your half-duck, my half-duck, along 
with eleven more half-ducks belonging to other citizens, most of whom 
would much prefer seeing their half-ducks left alive. Continuing with 
that thought, if each hunter took his limit for just six days the duck 
population of our country would be absolutely exterminated. Think that 
over. 
FI FI ft 
The Crow 
My friend and neighbor through the year, 
Self-appointed overseer 
Of my crops of fruit and grain, 
Of my woods and furrowed plain, 
Claim thy tithings right and left, 
I shall never call it theft. 
