i8o Bird -Lore 



selves to new conditions have been obliged to shift ground, and hereabout 

 I have only known of one pair nesting during the past five years. 



The nest, or rather hole-lining, is made of dried grass and a few feathers, 

 put together without the plaster used by the Barn Swallow, and the half- 

 dozen eggs are paper-white like those of the Woodpeckers. This total absence 

 of color in the eggs of some notable tree trunk nesters is one of the arguments 

 used by the holders of the color-protection theory, — being in a hole the eggs do 

 not need the protection of color to conceal them. 



The Tree Swallow is a notable insect-eater and has many attractive domestic 

 habits; it is not in the nesting season, but in the long period of the fall migration, 

 that we are the most familiar with it. Indeed, this event, spread as it is from 

 July to late October, is one of the great spectacular features of bird life; for, 

 though the large flocks are made up of both Barn and Bank and Cliff Swallows, 

 the Tree Swallows are greatly in the majority. 



By day, these Swallows skim over the meadows and country at large with 

 a wide circling flight, easy to distinguish from the more angular course of the 

 Barn Swallow. Toward night, they gather either in the marsh reeds or in the 

 low bushes of some region of ponds, or the back-water of ri\ ers, where they 

 roost, coming forth again in clouds at dawn. 



This fact, that during the migration Swallows invariably roost near water, 

 gave rise to the absurd old idea that they dive into the water and spend the 

 winter in the muddy bottom in a state of hibernation. From roosting in 

 the bushes on the sandy bars above marshes and along creeks where the 

 bayberry (Myrica cerijera) is common, the Tree Swallow, kept in cover by 

 storms, was doubtless driven by necessity to feed upon the waxy bayberries; 

 for certain it is that this berry is the one exception to its insectivorous diet. Aliss 

 Lemmon has told in Bird-Lore of one of these flockings at Englewood, N. J. : 



"On October 3, 1899, my attention was called to a huge flock of Tree Swal- 

 lows about a quarter of a mile from my home. These birds are abundant here 

 from July to October, but on this occasion at least 2,000 — estimating from pho- 

 tographs and from the counting of the live birds — were collected on the telegraph 

 wires and in the adjoining fields, and not a single specimen of 

 Manoeuvres any other species could be found in the flock. 



"On the wires were hundreds at a time, crowded together 

 between three poles; they seemed to have lost their usual fear of man, remain- 

 ing even when carriages went under them, and not always starting up when 

 the wires were struck by a stone — a temptation to throw which the passing small 

 boys found it impossible to resist. 



"Beside the road is a small brook with two or three exposed pools, and here 

 was a great oval whirl of birds, all going in the same direction, each in passing 

 dipping for a drink, then rising to re-take its place in the line. Now and then 

 some returned to the wires or others joined the drinkers, but the numbers were 

 so great that a collision seemed unavoidable. 



