336 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



ing a resting-place, then flew up the stream. I was very 

 much surprised at their numbers. Directly after, hear- 

 ing a buzzing sound, we found them all alighted on the 

 dense golden willow hedge at Shattuck's shore, parallel 

 with the shore, quite densely leaved and eighteen feet 

 high. They were generally perched five or six feet from 

 the top, amid the thick leaves, filling it for eight or ten 

 rods. They were very restless, fluttering from one perch 

 to another and about one another, and kept up a loud 

 and remarkable buzzing or squeaking, breathing or 

 hum, with only occasionally a regular twitter, now and 

 then flitting alongside from one end of the row to the 

 other. It was so dark we had to draw close to see them. 

 At intervals they were perfectly still for a moment, as 

 if at a signal. At length, after twenty or thirty minutes 

 of bustle and hum, they all settled quietly to rest on 

 their perches, I supposed for the night. We had rowed 

 up within a rod of one end of the row, looking up so as 

 to bring the birds between us and the sky, but they 

 paid not the slightest attention to us. What was re- 

 markable was : first, their numbers ; second, their perch- 

 ing on densely leaved willows ; third, their buzzing or 

 humming, like a hive of bees, even squeaking notes ; 

 and fourth, their disregarding our nearness. I supposed 

 that they were preparing to migrate, being the early 

 broods. 



Aug. 5, 1855. 4 A. M. — On river to see swallows. 



They are all gone ; yet Fay saw them there last night 

 after we passed. Probably they started very early. I 

 asked Minott if he ever saw swallows migrating, not 

 telling him what I had seen, and he said that he used 



