thirty pairs to build in the same barn, yet everything seems to be conducted 

 with great order and affection; all seems harmonious among them, as if the 

 interest of each was that of all. Several nests are often within a few inches 

 of each other, yet no appearance of discord or quarreling takes place in this 

 peaceful and affectionate community. 



When the young are fit to leave the nest the old ones entice them out by 

 fluttering backward and forward, twittering and calling to them every time 

 they pass, and the young exercise themselves for several days in short essays 

 of this kind within doors before they first venture abroad. As soon as they 

 leave the barn they are conducted by their parents to the trees, or bushes, 

 by the pond, creek or river shore, or other suitable situation, where their 

 proper food is most abundant, and where they can be fed with the greatest 

 convenience to both parties. Now and then they take a short excursion them- 

 selves, and are also frequently fed while on wing by an almost instantaneous 

 motion of both parties rising perpendicularly in air and meeting each other. 



About the middle of August they seem to begin to prepare for their de- 

 parture. They assemble on the roof in great numbers, dressing and arrang- 

 ing their plumage and making occasional essays, twittering with grfeat cheer- 

 fulness. Their song is a kind of sprightly warble, sometimes continued for a 

 considerable time. From this period to the 8th of September they are seen 

 near the Schuylkill and Delaware every afternoon for two or three hours be- 

 fore sunset, passing along to the south in great numbers, feeding as they skim 

 along. I have counted several hundreds pass within sight in less than a quar- 

 ter of an hour, all directing their course toward the south. The reeds are now 

 their roosting places, and about the middle of September there is scarcely an 

 individual of them to be seen. 



How far south they continue their route is uncertain ; none of them re- 

 main in the United States. Mr. Bartram informs me that during his residence 

 in Florida he often saw vast flocks of this and our other Swallows passing 

 from the peninsula toward the south in September and October, and also on 

 their return to the north about the middle of March. It is highly probable 

 that, were the countries to the south of the Gulf of Mexico visited and ex- 

 plored by a competent naturalist, these regions would be found to be the 

 winter rendezvous of the very birds now before us, and most of our other 

 migratory tribes. 



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