606 SWALLOW TRIBE. 



ers. The eggs are 4 or 5, and pure white ; and they 

 commonly raise two broods in the season. 



The voice of this species is rather low and guttural ; 

 they are likewise more quarrelsome and less sociable in 

 the breeding season, than the Barn Swallow. In the 

 spring their angry contentions and rapid chatter are 

 heard in the air for a quarter of an hour at a time. Their 

 food is similar to that of the species above mentioned, and 

 they make a snapping sound with the bill in the act of 

 seizing their prey. They proceed to the South in Sep- 

 tember, and according to the observations of Audubon, 

 pass nearly, if not quite the whole winter, in the cypress 

 swamps near to New Orleans, and probably in the Mexi- 

 can vicinity. He observed them about the middle of De- 

 cember, and also near to the close of January. " During 

 the whole winter many retired to the holes around houses, 

 but the greater number resorted to the lakes, and spent 

 the night among the branches of the wax myrtle," whose 

 berries, at this season, afford them a support on which they 

 fatten, and are then considered as excellent food. About 

 sunset they usually began to flock together, at a peculiar 

 call, and were then seen almost in clouds moving towards 

 the neighbouring lagoons, or the estuaries of the Missis- 

 sippi. Before alighting, they perform their aerial evolu- 

 tions to reconnoitre the place of roosting ; soon after 

 which they rapidly descend, as it were in a spiral vor- 

 tex, almost like the fall of a water-spout, and when with- 

 in a few feet of the wax myrtles, they disperse, and set- 

 tle at leisure ; but their twittering and the motions of 

 their wings are heard throughout the night. At dawn, 

 they rise, at first flying low over the waters, which they 

 almost touch, and then, rising, gradually separate in quest 

 of food. During their low flight, numbers of them are 



