(To THE EDITOR 07 TEL " SPECTATOR.") Ste, —I am
afraid that Marlborough must be added to the long list of localities where the scarcity of swallows and martins is to be deplored. Till quite recently every autumn mighty assemblies of martins, mustering before migration, might be seen on the roofs of the houses which 'fringe our green, but last year there was not one. This year the scarcity of swallows and martins is most marked, though perhaps it is not suffi- ciently realized that these birds have been' steadily decreasing in many places for some time past. In 1912 I was asked by the editor of British Birds to conduct an inquiry on the increase and decrease of certain summer migrants, and among them of swallows and martins. More than one hundred observers sent the results of their observations in to me. A large majority (over seventy) reported that, compared with the previous year, there had been a decided decrease in the number of these birds, some giving it as their opinion that this decrease had been going on steadily for some time, while others informed me that the martins had disappeared because they had been evicted by sparrows. That sparrows may, in some cases, be responsible for the scarcity of martins is rendered probable by the experience of the late Colonel Russell, of Stubbars, Romford, who was a keen wildfowler and good naturalist. For many years he waged trucelese war on the sparrows in his grounds, with the result that, as the sparrows decreased, so the number of the martins and all soft- billed birds steadily increased, but of course the main cause of the scarcity of the Hirundinidae has yet to be found. I was witness to an instructive incident the other day. An old- fashioned gardener was showing me his bed of turnips, which were fast disappearing before the attack of a small black fly, the plant and the ground between the rows being alive with. these pests. Suddenly five martins settled on the plot, and. began to travel up and down the rows, attacking the insects with the most persistent energy. My old friend was at first inclined to view these well-meant efforts with suspicion, think- ing that birds could not possibly be up to any good, but I am glad to say I made a convert, and I left him convinced that in the war against insect pests the most effective allies a gardener can have are swallows, martins, and all soft-billed
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