Purple Martin. This, the largest and in many respects the most beautiful of all our Swallow tribe, is the most local and the least numerous. In New England and, perhaps, in most of the northern states generally, this fine bird is steadily diminishing in numbers. The English Sparrow often takes possession of its boxes, ruthlessly kills the young Martins or throws out the eggs, and usually succeeds in routing the colony and appropriating the boxes. When measures are not taken to abate the Sparrow nuisance in the immediate vicinity of Martin colonies, the usual result is that the Martins are forced to abandon their houses. The habit of putting up houses for the accommodation of Martin colonies is not as common in the north as it formerly was, and to this indifference to the Martins’ presence, to persecution by the Sparrow, and to losses due to the prevalence of cold storms during the nesting season, no doubt, is due the present scarcity of the bird.
From the standpoint of the farmer and the fruit grower, perhaps, no birds more useful than the Swallows exist. They have been described as the light cavalry of the avian army. Specially adapted for flight and unexcelled in aërial evolutions, they have few rivals in the art of capturing insects in mid-air. They eat nothing of value to man except a few predaceous wasps and bugs, and, in return for their services in destroying vast numbers of noxious insects, ask only for harbourage and protection. It is to the fact that they capture their prey on the wing that their peculiar value to the cotton grower is due. Orioles do royal service in catching weevils on the bolls; and Blackbirds, Wrens, Flycatchers, and others contribute to the good work; but when Swallows are migrating over the cotton-fields they find the weevils flying in the open and wage active war against them.
—H. W. Henshaw, B.B.S., in Value of Swallows as Insect Destroyers.
“That Wise Man didn’t say anything about Chimney Swallows, and, please, Gray Lady, you left them out, too,” said Sarah Barnes, the moment the scrap-book closed, “and I know they catch lots of flying bugs.”
“Ah, Sarah!” exclaimed Gray Lady, laughing, “I did not precisely forget, but I was waiting for some one of you to ask the question. The bird that is called the Chimney Swallow even exceeds the others in being forever on the wing and never perching or ‘sitting down,’ as Sarah calls it, and it is a brave insect destroyer. In fact, it never perches even for one moment, but when it does rest makes a sort of bracket of its sharply pointed tail-feathers and rests against a tree or inside the chimney, somewhat as a Woodpecker does when resting on an upright tree-trunk. The Woodpeckers, however, have very strong feet, and the feet of the Chimney Swallow are very weak. But here comes the funny part—this chimney bird isn’t a Swallow, and the Swallows would call him a changeling. He is a Swift, first cousin to the tiny Humming-bird and the mysterious Night Hawk and Whip-poor-Will, so we must leave his story until we come to that of the family where he belongs, for after we have learned the names of individual birds, it is well to know their family and kin. You cannot always tell by the plumage of birds if they are related. Louise Stone, Fannie White, and Esther Gray here are cousins, and all live in one house, but as their last names are different, and they do not look alike, a stranger would have to be told, for he could not guess that they belong to one household.
“It is three o’clock already, and I see that Tommy and Dave have quite finished their windmills and Ruth’s apron is waiting for the pocket, so in spite of Farmer Hill’s remarks about ‘not working,’ every one has something to show for this Friday afternoon.
“Before we go, let me see if you can tell the ‘Things to remember’ about the five swallows.
“Shiny, steel-blue back and forked tail.”