164: RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



cliff ; the others flew to the same fence, where I had seen 

 scores of them two years before, and sat near together 

 facing the wind, just as pigeons will arrange themselves 

 on the peak of the roof of a barn during a rain-storm in 

 summer. 



In this case, these two swallows certainly became 

 thoroughly wetted, and had they been found later, when 

 the storm was over, would doubtless have presented the 

 appearance of being " as wet as if they had been just 

 come out of the sea." 



How easy it is to be misled by appearances in this 

 matter of studying bird-life ! Had I not known that 

 swallows had been flying for days before I found these 

 wet, bedraggled, storm-beaten birds, I could fairly have 

 claimed that my own experience fully confirmed the 

 opinions of others, that swallows not only migrate, but 

 remain in mud-encased beds at the bottoms of our ponds, 

 creeks, and rivers ; but until swallows are first heard sing- 

 ing their farewell dirge, as Dr. "Wallerius describes, then 

 seen to sink into the mud, and are then promptly resur- 

 rected, before a cloud of witnesses, it will be safe to as- 

 sert that what many have seen is susceptible of another 

 explanation than voluntary submergence in the mud of 

 our water-courses. Furthermore, it can be safely asserted, 

 I think, that bank-swallows return year after year to their 

 haunts of previous summers. A New York, or Con- 

 necticut, or Massachusetts colony of these birds, will not 

 reach its haunt of last summer as early as will the New 

 Jersey colonies reach theirs. 



Although the recent observations of Mr. Scott at 

 Princeton, New Jersey, conclusively show that migration 

 customarily takes place at any night when it is moon- 

 light, it does not necessarily show that migration at night 

 is the common habit of all birds that migrate. Indeed, 



