1898] Ornithology. 145 



Dr. Adams has not as yet published any full account of 

 these experiments because they are incomplete, in fact they can 

 now be said to be only beginning. A second machine is being 

 built so that the work which is necessarily very slow, may be 

 carried forward more rapidly. The best account of Dr. Adams's 

 discovery is that in the Scientific American of April 23rd, 1898. 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



Edited by W. T. Macoun. 



A Swallow Roost. — About a mile west of London, on 

 what are called the Cove Flats, there are fifteen or twenty rows 

 of willows, very thick-set, about 75 yards long and 15 feet high — 

 evidently the relics of an ancient nursery, plainly showing what 

 kind of tree was the most difficult to sell. 



Passing these on the evening of August 4th of this 

 year, I was attracted by the large number of Barn Swallows 

 circling near it, which, as the night drew on, became more and 

 more numerous, until I judged there were about 5,000 birds, — 

 almost all Barn Swallows — in the flock. They flew at random 

 until about 8 o'clock, only a few alighting in the roost before 

 that time, but at 8.04 my note-book records them " falling like 

 leaves," and by 8.05 half were settled. Their manner of descent 

 was both interesting and beautiful, especially of those from the 

 upper strata, for they were flying at all elevations from those 

 just skimming the ground, to those so far up that they could with 

 difficulty be seen, and these latter, in descending at an angle of 

 only 20 degrees from the perpendicular, performed the most 

 beautiful aerial evolutions it has been my fortune to witness. 

 Setting their wings for the drop, they would waver from side to 

 side as they came, much as a leaf wavers, but of course with 

 many times greater speed. A few Purple Martins could be 

 heard, and a few Bank Swallovvs ; once or twice I thought I 

 could detect the Cliff Swallow's note, and next morning I found 



