The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-05-25
For "THE UNION"
PURPLE HOUSE MARTINS.


MesSxs. Editors II noticed in your
paper few weeks back request to
know where the purple house mar
tins, after leaving here the latter part
of summer, make their winter home,
and as this question has been asked me
by many through letters and verbally,
1 will, through your paper with your
permission, answer the question.
Thepuyple martin adult male salus-
trous black, wings and tail being slight
ly duller. The adult female and the
young of both are a grayish brown,
CLOSED with steel blue on upper parts,
while they are a dark gray, shading
into whitish on the breast. The size
of the martin is about seven and one
half inches in length, spread of wings
fifteen to sixteen inches, making the
bird look very much larger than it
really is. / quote the following from
the Audubon National Association
"During summer the martin is a
bird of very wide distribution in tenn
perate North America. In autumn
it migrates to the tropics where it
spends the winter. Before the white
man discovered and settled the west
ern world, generations of martins had
made their annual journeys from their
tropical winter homes to the temper
ate parts of both continents. Their
nesting sites were then in hollow
trees or the caves. While forests and
rocky retreats have not been entirely
abandoned by them, yet many now
breed in houses provided for them by
man. The red man, true lover Of
nature, invited the cheerful martins
to remain about his tepee by erecting
a pole on which he hung hollow
gourd for nesting place. The white
successor of the aborigine has adopt
ed his red brother bird failure, often
providing a far more elaborate home
for its use. Is there anything in the
bird world that represents home life
and community of interests as we'll as
a colony of martins?
"Contentment, happiness, prosper
ity are here, and the cheerful, social
twitter of the martins and their in
dustrious habits are a continual SER
mon from the air to their brothers of
the earth. The only note of discord
in one of these happy colony houses
is from the pugnacious English spar
row, who covets the comfortable homes
of the martins and tries to evict the
rightful owners and substitute his
harsh, disagreeable chatter for their
pleasant voices.
"The value of the martins to the
human race is very great. The birds
are SO pre-eminently aerial that their
food necessarily consists of flying in
sects. Among these may be some of
the dreaded stegonzia. 1t is we'll
established fact that this and other
species of mosquito convey both ma
laria and yellow fever. Every mos
quito, therefore, that is destroyed by
a martin, or in fact by any other bird,
lessons so much the chance of the
spread of fever plaques. If one hu-
man life is saved each year through
the destruction of fever bearing mos
quitos by the martins and other birds,
it is a sufficient reason why the lives
ofthese valuable birds should be saved.
"The martin is also known to feed
on other injurious insects. DR.. Pac-
ord Gas quoted by Weeb and Deer
born, Birds in Relation to Man, page
1907, found one of the compartments
of martin box literally packed with
the dried remains of a little yellow
and black squash BEETLE And the
same authors state that ten Nebraska
specimens, examined by Professor
Aughey, had eaten two hundred and
sixty-fve locusts and one hundred
and sixty-one other insects. ;"
The martins are undoubtedly de-
creasing in numbers. Their absence
may be accounted for by the mortality
among young birds occasioned by cold
weather or prolonged storms during
the nesting season, (and I will add
here also their decrease is being help
ed on by parents allowing their chill
dren to run wild over the towns and
farms destroying the old birds while
the young are in the nest and left to
starve. The game wardens cannot
catch all ; parents should stop this
cruel work.. It now seems that their
disappearance is in no small measure
due to their destruction in the South
during migration. Mr.. T. Gilbert
Pearson, the secretary of the Audit
bon Association, who is a resident of
North Carolina, states that its pres
ent decrease must in large measure
be due to the persecution which it is
receiving today in many localities In
the Southern States. Martins are ac-
customed to gather in large focks
during the latter part of summer for
the purpose of roosting in some fa-
vored grove. AS they journey south
ward apparently these focks increase
in size, and the writer has on several
occasions watched the birds coming
to their roosts in the evening in as
tonishing numbers. They seem to
prefer grove near human habita-
ton for their nightly rendezvous.
They create no little comment in the
neighborhood because of their num-
bers, and by their continuous chatter
and futtering the early part of the
night.