This well-known bird is a general inhabitant of the United States, and
a particular favorite wherever he takes up his abode. "I never met with
more than one man," says Wilson, "who disliked the martins, and would
not permit them to settle about his house. This was a penurious,
close-fisted German, who hated them because, as he said, 'they ate his
_peas_.' I told him he must certainly be mistaken, as I never knew an
instance of martins eating _peas_; but he replied, with great coolness,
that he had often seen them 'blaying round the hive, and going
_schnip_, _schnap_,' by which I understood that it was his _bees_ that
had been the sufferers; and the charge could not be denied."