CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 363 
Such are the usual roosting places of the Chimney Swallow in the 
more thinly settled parts of the country. In towns, however, they are 
differently situated; and it is matter of curiosity to obverve that they 
frequently select the court-house chimney for their general place of 
rendezvous, as being usually more central, and less liable to interrup- 
tion 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 20th 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 in- 
formed 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, 
T might, in an hour or two, witness their whole manceuvres. : 
T 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 peculiar 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 imme- 
diately 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 suc- 
cession; in this feint, they approached nearer and nearer at every 
revolution, dropping perpendicularly, 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 off, 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 clustering 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. My. 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 re- 
‘tired to the court-house to roost was not more than one-fourth of the 
former; that, on the morning of the 23d of June, he particularly ob- 
served their reascension, which took place at a quarter past four, or 
twenty minutes before sunrise, and that they passed out in less than 
