Ridgway says that no bird of America is more deserving of protection and of encouragement to live about the habitations of man than the purple martin. One pair of them will destroy more insects in a season than all the English sparrows in a township will kill in their life-time. Besides, their notes are pleasing to the ear, and their actions both when on the wing and when perching upon their boxes extremely interesting. During the breeding-season the male has a continued and varied song of great beauty and considerable power; and it is as much on account of the sweetness of their notes as for their familiarity and usefulness that these birds are such general favorites. In the wild woods where they have not had opportunity to avail themselves of man's hospitality they are as lovely and musical as when semi-domesticated in our door-yards, and, it is said, are in all respects exactly the same birds. When Audubon was traveling through the Middle States, he reported that almost every country tavern had a martin-box on the upper part of its signboard, and commented: "I have observed that the handsomer the box, the better does the inn prove to be." The Indians hung up calabashes for the martins, so they would keep the vultures from the deerskins and venison that were drying. Mr. Nehrling says that the martin is as well satisfied with the simple hollow gourd attached to a pole near a negro hut as with the most ornamental and best arranged martin-house in the beautiful gardens and parks of rich planters and opulent merchants. He claims that where no nesting boxes are provided our martin will not breed, and that it hardly ever accepts nesting-boxes attached to trees, preferring localities where the chance is given to dart in and out uninterrupted by any obstacle. The struggle between the martins and sparrows is so bitter that one pair of martins watched by Mr. Widmann adopted the plan of never leaving the nest alone, taking turns in going for food, because, as he explains, "it is comparatively easy to keep a sparrow out of a box, but it is impossible for a martin to dislodge him after he has built a nest."