and
“Yo yo yo yo yo.”
This pair took possession of the upper east room. The next day four more martins came. One pair took a lower east room, the other took the south room. It looked as though the wire on top and the ventilation pleased them. I was overjoyed that this house, which I had designed, proved satisfactory to these notional birds.
The dimensions of the rooms in this house are six inches square by seven inches high. The diameter of the entrances is two and a half inches; the width of porch five inches. The pole extends through the center of the house and is screwed to the roof. The rest of this house is held in place by means of a bolt underneath, which can be taken out and the house—without its roof—let down to be cleaned.[2]
Now listen to the good that martins do: A martin will eat mosquitoes by the thousand every day, besides many insects that injure fruit trees and spoil the fruit. To protect their young, martins will drive away hawks and other big birds that come near. In this way they also protect any poultry yard near by. On moonlight nights they hunt the moths and millers until midnight.
In late August the martins began to assemble in ever increasing numbers, getting ready for the journey to their winter home, which is said to be in Central and South America.
During one of the days while those gatherings were going on, the boy was here. The martins had, by this time, become so confiding that we could go clear up to the pole on which their house was mounted,—and they would stay on the wires and look down at us! I told the boy how I had driven the sparrows away from the martin house, and showed him the stick with the can tied to it. He tried it on the nearest telephone pole, and instantly the martins flew from the wires. It looked like a great gathering in midair.
The father martins were much darker at this time than in the Spring,—in fact, almost black. Mother’s pretty violet hues had faded to gray. Baby Martin was brownish-gray on the back, and light in front.
One day the whole colony departed, a jolly company, leaving us sad indeed, but hopeful that they would return with the Spring flowers.
