Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/370

334 the 18th of the same month, not one did 1 see near it, and only a few scattered individuals were passing, as if moving southward. In Septem- ber I entered the tree at night, but not a bird was in it. Once more I went to it in February, when the weather was very cold ; and perfectly satisfied that all these Swallows had left our country, I finally closed the entrance, and left off visiting it.

May arrived, bringing with its vernal warmth the wanderers of the air, and I saw their number daily augmenting, as they resorted to the tree to roost. About the beginning of June, I took it in my head to close the aperture above, with a bundle of straw, which with a string I could draw off whenever I might chuse. The result was curious enough ; the birds as usual came to the tree towards night ; they assembled, passed and repassed, with apparent discomfort, until I perceived many flying off" to a great distance, on which I removed the straw, when many entered the hole, and continued to do so until I could no longer see them from the ground. I left Louisville, having removed my residence to Henderson, and did not see the tree until five years after, when I still found the Swallows re- sorting to it. The pieces of wood with which I had closed the entrance had rotted, or had been carried off, and the hole was again completely filled with exuviae and mould. During a severe storm, their ancient tene- ment at length gave way, and came to the ground.

General William Clakk assured me that he saw this species on the whole of his route to the Pacific, and there can be no doubt that in those wilds it still breeds in trees or rocky caverns.

Its food consists entirely of insects, the pellets composed of the indi- gestible parts of which it disgorges. It is furnished with glands which supply the unctuous matter with which it fastens its nest. This species does not appear to extend its migrations farther east than the British provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It is unknown in Newfoundland and Labrador ; nor was it until the 29th of May that I saw some at Eastport in Maine, where a few breed.

HiRUNDO PELASGiA, Linn. Syst. Nat. voL i. p. 345. Latli, Ind. Ornith. voL ii. p. 581. Cypselus pelasgius, Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 63. Chimney Swallow, Hirundo pelasgia, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. v. p. 48, pi. 39. fig. 1. Nuttall, Manual, p. 609.

Adult Male. Plate CLVIII. Fig. 1.

Bill extremely short, very broad at the base, with a very wide rictus,