C. H. Merriam — Birds of Connecticut. 61 



with the highest degree of evidence, which the subject may admit of: 

 but I am led to believe from them, that the House Swallow, in this 

 part of America, generally resides during the winter, in the hollow of 

 trees."* 



The tree above described, from Middlebury, Vermont, finally blew 

 down, and, more than half a century (in 1852) after Williams wrote 

 the account above given of it, its remains were visited by his suc- 

 cessor, in the historical line, Zadock Thompson, and were found 

 scarcely less interesting than the tree itself when inhabited by thou- 

 sands of Swifts. Thompson gave this account of its condition and 

 contents in 1852 : "The tree had rotted away, leaving little besides 

 the cylindrical mass, which had filled its hollow. The length of this 

 mass was about seven feet, and its diameter fifteen inches. Of the 

 materials which composed it, about one-half consisted of the feathers 

 of the Chimney Swallow, being, for the most part, wing and tail 

 feathers. The other half was made up of exuvia of insects, mostly 

 fragments and eggs of the large wood-ant, and a brown substance 

 probably derived from the decayed wood of the interior of the tree. 

 This discovery at Middlebury, though interesting, would not have 

 been regarded as very remarkable, if the materials which filled the 

 hollow of the tree, had been promiscuously and disorderly mingled 

 together. Such a jumbled mass would be what we should expect to 

 find in a hollow tree which had been, for centuries, perhaps, the 

 roosting place of myriads of Swallows. But this is not the case. 

 In their general arrangement, the larger feathers have nearly all their 

 quills pointing outward, while their plumes, or ends on which their 



webs are arranged, point inward But this is not the most 



remarkable circumstance connected with the subject. In various 

 parts of the mass, are found, in some cases, all the primary feathers 

 of the wing; in others, all the feathers of the tail, lying together in 

 contact, and in precisely the same order and position, in which they 

 are found in the living Swallow. In a lump of the materials, meas- 

 uring not more than seven inches by five, and less than three inches 

 thick, five wings and two tails were plainly seen, with their feathers 

 arranged as above mentioned, and in one of the wings, all the second- 

 ary quills were also arranged in their true position with regard to 

 the primaries. Now, we cannot conceive it possible that these feath- 

 ers could be shed by living birds, and be thus deposited. We may 



* The Natural and Civil History of Vermont. By Samuel "Williams, pp. llti-18. 

 1794. 



