12 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis 



Martins of a certain district, from whence they start for 

 the distant roost in the -svillow thicket, which they do not^ 

 enter until it is quite dark, and which they leave mth the 

 first dawn, from ten to fifteen minutes before the swift 

 leaves its chimney. 



The young join the parents as soon as they are able 

 to fly the distance, or, as here, to cross the Mississippi. 

 From that moment the boxes are never entered again, 

 but their roofs are used for social gathering in the morn- 

 ing hours during the next few weeks. The regularity of 

 these visits does not last long ; pauses occur ; in dry, hot 

 weather the visits are short, in cool spells they are cut 

 off entirely, but a sultry, rainy term brings them back 

 again to spend a few hours in animated chattering 

 around the old home. In the evening they only pass 

 without stopping, but they visit often their old hunting 

 grounds in the neighborhood. During the day they are 

 seldom seen after the first of August. After this date 

 they appear late in the evening, but their number 

 increase rapidly. They collect on treetops, church steeples 

 and other points of prominence and loftiness, around 

 which they swarm like bees for about half an hour, when 

 the air for a mile around is filled with Martins, which 

 now form a whirling body of many thousand, rolling up 

 and down at first above the bluffs, then above the Missis- 

 sippi, going and returning in wide circles, but all this 

 time drawing surreptitiously toward the willows on the 

 other side of the river. It has now become dusk and the 

 descent cannot be seen from this shore, but the moment 

 can be known by a sudden outcry of alarmed Crows and 

 Blackbirds which had retired into the same willows long 

 before. 



Such vast numbers of Martins cannot be sent forth 

 from one city nor from a few counties. Thei Martins of 

 half of the states of Missouri and Illinois must flock to- 

 gether to form such an army. But it is not yet migra- 



