It is said that purple martins will not stay anywhere that men have not made houses for them. But I have seen them living in a place not put up for them, though perhaps they thought it was. It was under a terra-cotta covering to a cornice on a business block in the middle of a busy city. The terra-cotta was shaped like a large pipe cut in half, the long way. This half cylinder was laid on top of the brick cornice, and that made a little roof, you see. The whole length of that cornice was thus made into one long room, with a brick floor and terra-cotta roof, and an entrance at the end. That room must have had a dozen martin nests, for a flock was all the time sailing about in the air, above the roofs of the houses.
As these birds eat only flying insects, they cannot stay with us when it is too cool for insects to fly abroad. So they leave us very early. When the little ones are out of the nest and can fly well, swallows from all the country around collect in great flocks, and go to some swamp, or lonely place where people do not go much. There the young ones are taught and exercised every day in flying. And some day we shall go out and find them all gone, not a swallow to be seen. They have started for their winter home, which is far south, in tropical countries, where insects never fail; but it is a comfort to think that next summer we shall have them back with us again.
The swallows I have mentioned, barn swallow, eave swallow, and purple martin, are found all over our country.
Let me tell you a story that shows the purple martin has a good deal of sense. One of these birds built in a box under a window, fixed so that the owner could open it and take out eggs. He took out several, one at a time, and at last he took out one of the birds.
The mate of the stolen bird went off and in a few days came back with another mate. The box was too good to give up, so both the birds went to work to make it safe against the nest robber. They built up a wall of mud before the too handy back door. The egg thief could not get in without breaking down the wall, and he was ashamed to do that. So the birds kept their pleasant home, and reared their family there.
FOOTNOTE:
[13] See [Appendix, 12].