DO BIRDS REASON?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 27, 1896

In the spring of 1894 I put up two high poles in my yard; at the top of these I placed two boxes, each containing two compartments, one of these poles was intended for my old associates, the purple martins (P. purpurea), who generally arrived between the middle and last week of April, to sojourn with us until the fall reminds them of their autumn migration southward.

The other pole was for the occupation of my little friends, the wrens (T. aedon), who arrived a little earlier than their above neighbors.

The wrens, two pairs, duly arrived, and after closely inspecting every knot-hole and crevice to be found in or about the outhouses and barn, finally selected the box appointed for them, which, altho a new one to them, occupied the place of an old one, which had been taken down the previous winter, and in which they had nested for some years. They rapidly commenced work, and soon numerous sticks adorned their respective compartments, when suddenly a pair of English sparrows (P. domesticus) put in an appearance, and, driving away its occupants, took forcible possession of both compartments. The wrens retreated and disappeared, but in the short time of ten minutes returned with reinforcements, consisting of about seven or eight other wrens, who, after a sharp conflict, drove the intruders from the field.

The sparrows, in about fifteen minutes, also returned, they in their turn having picked up about ten recruits, and vigorously attacked and put to flight the whole army of wrens.

While attentively watching the battle, and considering it about time for my interference, I noticed a wren slip over my bird-house, and enter one of the compartments of the martin box, which was upon a much higher pole, and distant about ten yards from their pole, upon whose box the victorious sparrows were chippering and showing every sign of victory.

The wren soon stole away and disappeared, and one of the female martins came out of its compartments, and was soon joined by the other female; in a few minutes the male martins arrived very closely together, and, uttering a few notes, all four charged the sparrows, and in a minute or two had completely routed the aggressors, who never returned; the martins returned to their box, and soon the four wrens came back, and settled down happily.

I thought this was a clear case of bird sense and bird language on the wrens’ part; for they, finding they could not hold their own, had appealed to their neighboring wrens first—but where they found them so quickly I could not say, for I only knew of one nest, about two hundred yards distant—also of shrewd policy, when the enemy was reinforced, in applying for help to their powerful neighbors.

The martins attacked the sparrows in a similar way that bee martins employ in fighting hawks or other birds who approach their nests.—The Museum.