400 SINGING BIRDS. 



ing season that the Barn Swallow. In the spring their pro- 

 tracted, angry contentions, and rapid chatter are often heard in 

 the air. Their food is similar to that of the species above 

 mentioned, and they make a snapping sound with the bill in 

 the act of seizing their prey. They proceed to the South in 

 September, and according to the observations of Audubon 

 pass nearly, if not quite, the whole winter in the cypress swamps 

 near to New Orleans, and probably in the Mexican vicinity. 

 He observed them about the middle of December, and also 

 near to the close of January. '* During the whole winter many 

 retired to the holes around houses, but the greater number 

 resorted to the lakes, and spent the night among the branches 

 of the wax-myrtle," whose berries at this season afford them a 

 support on which they fatten, and are then considered as excel- 

 lent food. About sunset they usually began to flock together 

 at a peculiar call, and were then seen almost in clouds moving 

 towards the neighboring lagoons or the estuaries of the Mis- 

 sissippi. Before alighting they perform their aerial evolutions 

 to reconnoitre the place of roosting, soon after which they 

 rapidly descend as it were in a spiral vortex almost like the 

 fall of a water-spout, and when within a few feet of the wax- 

 myrtles they disperse and settle at leisure ; but their twittering 

 and the motions of their wings are heard throughout the night. 

 At dawn they rise, at first flying low over the waters which 

 they almost touch, and then rising gradually separate in quest 

 of food. During their low flight numbers of them are often 

 killed by canoe-men with the mere aid of their paddles 

 (Aububon). This predilection for the borders of lakes and 

 ponds led some of the ancient writers to believe that Swallows 

 retired to the bottom of the water during the winter; and 

 some fishermen on the coast of the Baltic pretended to have 

 taken them up in their nets in large knots, clinging together 

 by their bills and claws in a state of torpidity. 



