elem A URDsU OB ON. Boos Lene Tyl N 15 
wild columbine. Large groups of these are part of the May pageant 
growing in a wild flower bed against my porch. Not a hummingbird may 
be in sight until the first columbine opens, and then they are there, busy 
and buzzing. If you want something interesting, read about the humming- 
bird, its speed and capacity for long flights. 
A great-crested flycatcher just flew to the screen and gobbled a somno- 
lent moth. Wrens travel up and down the wire and under the eaves picking 
off spiders, crane flies and any unwary insects that loiter. * * * * 
This year there are new bird notes that I have wanted to hear ever 
since we owned the place. In April we put a fifteen room martin house on 
a twenty foot pole in the orchard where I can watch it from the porch. No 
Martins flocking before migration 
sooner was it in an erect position than a pair of English sparrows with 
their characteristic forehandedness moved into the attic room and began 
housekeeping. 
A few days later a pair of purple martins arrived as surely as if they 
had read an advertisement of rooms to rent. As the apartment had been 
built solely to please them with correct specifications as to doors, it was 
not surprising that they wished to move in—but not with the sparrows in 
the attic. A pair of martins and a pair of sparrows are evenly matched 
when the latter are in possession, and the former discreetly departed— 
only to return two days later with two other couples and an invitation for 
the sparrows to leave. Politeness is lost on English sparrows; being bullies 
of the worst type, they are amenable to nothing but force, and this the 
martins had by reason of superior numbers. The attack was short and 
sharp; the rout complete. The sparrows were pitched out and their bedding 
after them, by which they understood they were not wanted and departed 
with ruffled feathers to more peaceful parts. | 
The martins selected the best rooms out of the fifteen, both attic rooms 
