Classic Book Library : Science : Bird Neighbors. : Chapter 12 : Page 1 of 2

Length -- 7 to 8 inches. Two or three inches smaller than the robin. Male -- Rich glossy black with bluish and purple reflections; duller black on wings and tail. Wings rather longer than the tail, which is forked. Female -- More brownish and mottled; grayish below. Range -- Peculiar to America. Penetrates from Arctic Circle to South America. Migrations -- Late April. Early September. Summer resident.

In old-fashioned gardens, set on a pole over which honeysuckle and roses climbed from a bed where China pinks, phlox, sweet Williams, and hollyhocks crowded each other below, martin boxes used always to be seen with a pair of these large, beautiful swallows circling overhead. Bur now, alas! the boxes, where set up at all, are quickly monopolized by the English sparrow, a bird that the martin, courageous as a kingbird in attacking crows and hawks, tolerates as a neighbor only when it must.

Bradford Torrey tells of seeing quantities of long-necked squashes dangling from poles about the negro cabins all through the South. One day he asked an old colored man what these squashes were for.