610 SWALLOW TRIBE. 



by a copious quantity of adhesive gum or mucilage se- 

 creted by the stomach of the curious architect. This 

 rude cradle of the young is small and shallow, and at- 

 tached, at the sides, to the wall of some chimney, or the 

 inner surface of a hollow tree : it is wholly destitute of 

 lining. The eggs are usually 4, and white. They have 

 commonly two broods in the season. So assiduous are 

 the parents, that they feed the young through the greater 

 part of the night ; their habits, however, are nearly noc- 

 turnal, as they fly abroad most at and before sunrise, 

 and in the twilight of evening. The noise which they 

 make, while passing up and down the chimney, resem- 

 bles almost the rumbling of distant thunder. When the 

 nests get loosened by rains, so as to fall down, the young, 

 though blind, find means to escape, by creeping up and 

 clinging to the sides of the chimney walls ; in this situa- 

 tion they continue to be fed for a week or more. Soon 

 tired of their hard cradle, they generally leave it long 

 before they are capable of flying. 



On their first arrival, and for a considerable time after, 

 the males, particularly, associate to roost in a general re- 

 sort. This situation, in the remote and unsettled parts 

 of the country, is usually a large, hollow tree, open at 

 top. These well known Sivalloiv-trees are ignorantly 

 supposed to be the winter quarters of the species, where, 

 in heaps, they doze away the cold season in a state of 

 torpidity ; but no proof of the fact is ever adduced. The 

 length of time such trees have been resorted to by par- 

 ticular flocks may be conceived perhaps, by the account 

 of a hollow tree of this kind described by the Rev. Dr. 

 Harris in his Journal. The Platanus alluded to, grew in 

 the upper part of Waterford in Ohio, two miles from the 

 Muskingum, and its hollow trunk, now fallen, of the di- 

 ameter of 5|- feet, and for nearly 15 feet upwards, con- 



i 



