96 THE ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 



shall begin with one about which there can be the 

 least dispute. We are furnished with an instance 

 well adapted for this purpose in the American chim- 

 ney-swallow (Cypselus pelasgius, LATHAM). 



\yilson has given the following very interesting 

 history of their mode of nestling. " They arrive," 

 he says, " in Pennsylvania late in April or early in 

 May, dispersing themselves over the whole country, 

 wherever there are vacant chimneys in summer suf- 

 ficiently high and convenient for their accommoda- 

 tion. In no other situation with us are they observed 

 at present to build. This circumstance naturally 

 suggests the query, Where did these birds construct 

 their nests before the arrival of Europeans in this 

 country, when there were no such places for their 

 accommodation 1 I would answer, probably in the 

 same situations in which they still continue to build 

 in the remote regions of our western forests, where 

 European improvements of this kind are. scarcely 

 to be found ; namely, in the hollow of a tree, which 

 in some cases has the nearest resemblance to their 

 present choice of any other. One of the first set- 

 tlers in the State of Kentucky informed me that he 

 cut down a large hollow beech-tree which contained 

 forty or fifty nests of the chimney-swallow, most 

 of which, by the fall of the tree or by the weather, 

 were lying at the bottom of the hollow, but sufficient 

 fragments remained adhering to the sides of the tree 

 to enable him to number them. They appeared, he 

 said, of some years' standing. The present site 

 which they have chosen must, however, hold out 

 many more advantages than the former, since we 

 see that in the whole thickly-settled parts of the 

 United States these birds have uniformly adopted 

 this new convenience, not a single pair being ob- 

 served to prefer the woods. 



" Security from birds of prey and other animals, 

 from storms that frequently overthrow the timber, 

 and the numerous ready conveniences which these 

 new situations afford, are doubtless some of the ad- 



