The Republican journal., 1912-06-06
Bird Talks.
The Purple Martin.

purple martin, with song, call or note
for every emotion, cannot fail to be a
fayorite. They are of gregarious, social
habits and their happy disposition and
harmonious adjustment of family and
neighborhood life at once engages the at
tention of the observer. Their notes are
full and melodious, with all the changes
from ioy to expostulation, but they sell
dom sound in anger except at the intru-
sion of some enemy In the latter case
the martins are very fearless and cour-
ageous. and are the only birds with the
exception of the barn swallows which
will venture to attack the small hawks
Tn doing this the brave birds sometimes
come to grief l have seen two of them
caught by hawks which suddenly turned
on their backs and caught the attacking
martins in their talons, both falling to
the ground. On one of these occasions l
happened to be near enough to rescue
the martin, but on the other the birds
fell too far away for the result of the
struggle to be seer ny LIE.
The food of the martin consists of fly
ing insects, and ranges from moths and
dragon flies to mosquitoes. The color of
the birds until they are year and half
old, is a dull purplish blue above, and
brownish gray below. During the second
winter in their southern home in Mexico,
AZ of q
bird is changed to a rich purplish blue
while the female retains her duller garb.
The old martins arrive about the last
of April and begin to build about the
twentieth of May. The younger birds
arrive about the middle of May and
sometimes start nesting as late as the
twentieth of June. There are many
more males than females, which is prob
ably due to the fact that the female
is caught or trapped on her nest
by cats or other enemies. AS rule it is
difficult to suit the martins in a nesting
site. For twenty years have tried to
get colony of them to build and return
the succeeding season with their aug
mented families. They would start the
first year with one pair of year old birds,
hatch, rear their young, depart, return
the nextssyear and be joined by several
more pairs, only to leave suddenly, de-
serting their eggs, nests and even their
partly grown young. There seems to be
no satisfactory explanation of this I'M
natural condition and it has never been
clear to naturalists.
| have however noticed that this early
desertion of their nests has occurred af-
ster long period of cold, rainy weather,
when the birds have been wet or chilled
through. On the twentieth of May, 1902,
cold rain storm killed dozen or more
of the birds at my houses. Upon taking
down the martin houses after an early
exodus, | have sometimes found one dead
martin inside, which may have been
enough to brighten the rest of the birds
away. Another possible explanation lies
in the fact that the martins are very
early migrators, but whatever it is that
causes the desertion of their nests, it
renders them suspicious, and no martin
appears until June of the following year,
when lone young male will stay around
for few weeks, then return the next
summer with a mate and thus start
again.
have now had the martins four sue
cessive years and at this early date,
MAY 25th,) there are thirty pairs build
ing while more are arriving daily. The
largest colony in Maine is said to be in
Presque Isle and to consist of sixty pairs.
Anyone interested in having these
birds nest near them should build rain
tight bird houses with only one door to
each room. If on poles, the houses
should be sixteen or more feet from the
ground, with tin around the poles as a
protection from cats. A house built in
this way will probably have few of the
birds in year or two, if other birds par
ticularly the English sparrows, can be
kept out.
The following incident gave me an in
sight into the nature of the English SPAR
row. A large number of cave swallows
were nesting under the caves of the barn.
One day noticed some of their eggs or
the ground and was unable to determine
the cause of such an accident, until sud.
denly there emerged from one of the
cave swallows nests female English
sparrow, with her bill driven into ar
egg, which she dropped at my feet. This
destruction of their eggs caused the de.
parture Of the cave swallows, and they
have never returned. A shot gun seems
to be the only satisfactory radiance Of
the English sparrows, which if left alone
will keep up continual struggle to gain
possession OF the martin houses, and will
sometimes succeed in driving away the
martins
The interest in the purple martin is
wide spread, as is evidenced by the many
houses built for them throughout the
country, and to those who are successful
in establishing colony of the birds the
study of their habits will afford many a
pleaSurable and DELIGHTFUL hour.