(during part of which same time only does the sparrow take any appreciable number of them) the martin lives here entirely on insects, and does no harm at all. Not liking to kill martins, I cannot give a list of the insects they feed on, but know that they destroy tipulidæ (daddy-longlegs class), beetles, moths, and winged aphides. Biting-midges were certainly unknown in the district in which I was born and brought up and still live, while we had plenty of martins; but when these had nearly all disappeared some thirty years ago, the midges came and remained ever since in such numbers, and bite so viciously, that no one can sit in a garden on a calm evening from May till October. Whether these things were cause and effect, or mere coincidence, I do not know; but since my martins have again become numerous, the midges have nearly disappeared in my garden, from which for years they used to drive us. As they drift with the wind like fog, and one colony of martins cannot clear the country of midges for many miles round, my place cannot be expected to be always quite free from them.
If martins abounded, as, in the absence of sparrows, they would almost everywhere, they would do an immense amount of good, coursing about over gardens, meadows and fields, and destroying multitudes of injurious insects in the winged state, especially when these are shifting their quarters to new ground. I am under the impression that there have been more complaints of red maggot in wheat-ears since the martins have become scarce; it is not unlikely that they may take the parent wheat-midge, as well as turnip-fly (or flea)[1] and beetle which breeds
- ↑ A neighbouring farmer has just told me that he has seen my martins in hundreds flying close to the ground over seed beds of cabbage, etc., taking turnip-flea springing, as is their habit, a few inches from the ground.
