Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/369

Rh through this mass, for nearly six feet This operation took up a good deal of time, and knowing by experience that if the birds should notice the hole below, they would abandon the tree, I had it carefully closed. The Swallows came as usvial that night, and I did not disturb them for seve- ral days. At last, provided with a dark lantern, I went with my companion about nine in the evening, determined to have a full view of the interior of the tree. The hole was opened with caution. !• scrambled up the sides of the mass of exuviae, and my friend followed. All was perfectly silent. Slowly and gradually I brought the light of the lantern to bear on the sides of the hole above us, when we saw the Swallows clinging side by side, covering the whole surface of the excavation. In no instance did I see one above another. Satisfied with the sight, I closed the lantern. We then caught and killed with as much care as possible more than a hundred, stowing them away in our pockets and bosoms, and slid down into the open air. We observed that, while on this visit, not a bird had dropped its dung upon us. Closing the entrance, we marched towards Louisville perfectly elated. On examining the birds which we had pro- cured, a hundred and fifteen in number, we found only six females. Eighty-seven were adult males ; of the remaining twenty -two the sex could not be ascertained, and I had no doubt that they were young of that year's first brood, the flesh and quill-feathers being tender and soft.

Let us now make a rough calculation of the number that clung to the tree. The space beginning at the pile of feathers and moulded exuviae, and ending at the entrance of the hole above, might be fully 25 feet in height, with a breadth of 15 feet, supposing the tree to be 5 feet in dia- meter at an average. There would thus be 375 feet square of sur- face. Each square foot, allowing a bird to cover a space of 3 inches by 1|, which is more than enough, judging from the manner in which they were packed, would contain 32 birds. The number of Swallows, there- fore, that roosted in this single tree was 9000.

I watched the motions of the Swallows, and when the young birds that had been reared in the chimneys of Louisville, Jefffersonville, and the houses of the neighbourhood, or the trees suited for the purpose, had left their native recesses, I visited the tree on the 2d day of August. I concluded that the numbers resorting to it had not increased; but I found many more females and young than males, among upwards of fifty, which were caught and opened. Day after day I watched the tree. On the 13th of August, not more than two or three hundred came there to I'oost. On.