CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 235 



rendezvous, as being usually more central, and less liable to interruption 

 during the night. I might enumerate many places where this is their 

 practice. Being in the town of Reading, Pennsylvania, in the month 

 of August, I took notice of sixty or eighty of these birds, a little before 

 evening, amusing themselves by ascending and descending the chimney 

 of the court-house there. I was told that in the early part of summer 

 they were far more numerous at that particular spot. On the twentieth 

 of May in returning from an excursion to the Great Pine Swamp, I 

 spent part of the day in the town of Easton, where I was informed by 

 my respected friend Mordecai Churchman, cashier of the bank there, 

 and one of the people called Quakers, that the Chimney Swallows of 

 Easton had selected the like situation ; and that from the windows of 

 his house, which stands nearly opposite to the court-house, I might in 

 an hour or two witness their whole manoeuvres.. 



I accepted the invitation with pleasure. Accordingly a short time 

 after sunset the Chimney Swallows, which were generally dispersed 

 about town, began to collect around the court-house, their numbers 

 every moment increasing, till, like motes in the sunbeams, the air seemed 

 full of them. These while they mingled amongst each other seemingly 

 in every direction, uttering their pepuliar note with great sprightliness, 

 kept a regular circuitous sweep around the top of the court-house, and 

 about fourteen or fifteen feet above it, revolving with great rapidity for 

 the space of at' least ten minutes. There could not be less than four or 

 five hundred of them. They now gradually varied their line of motion 

 until one part of its circumference passed immediately over the chimney 

 and about five or six feet above it. Some as they passed made a slight 

 feint of entering, which was repeated by those immediately after, and 

 by the whole circling multitude in succession ; in this feint they 

 approached nearer and nearer at every revolution, dropping perpendicu- 

 larly, but still passing over ; the circle meantime becoming more and 

 more contracted, and the rapidity of its revolution greater as the dusk 

 of evening increased, until at length one, and then another, dropped in, 

 another and another followed, the circle still revolving until the whole 

 multitude had descended except one or two. These flew oif as if to 

 collect the stragglers, and in a few seconds returned with six or eight 

 more, which, after one or two rounds, dropped in one by one, and all 

 was silence for the night. It seemed to me hardly possible that the 

 internal surface of the vent could accommodate them all, without cluster- 

 ing on one another, which I am informed they never do ; and I was very 

 desirous of observing their ascension in the morning, but having to set 

 off before day, I had not that gratification. Mr. Churchman, however, 

 to whom I have since transmitted a few queries, has been so obliging as 

 to inform me, that towards the beginning of June the number of those 

 that regularly retired to the court-house to roost, was not more than 



