OF NEW ENGLAND. 147 
tree, as is not unfrequently the case in many other States. 
The eggs of each set are four or five, average °75 X °55 of an 
inch, and are white, unmarked. Two broods are generally 
raised. 
(c). The White-bellied Swallows usually announce spring to 
the people of Boston and the vicinity in the first week of April ; 
but after their arrival they are sometimes obliged, when dis- 
couraged by the cold, to retreat temporarily southward to a 
warmer latitude. As our ancestors long since discovered this 
fact in relation to their swallows, they have handed down to us 
the wise proverb that ‘‘one swallow does not make a summer.” 
The White-bellied Swallows return to their winter-homes about 
the middle of September, when all the other swallows have 
gone (and I have seen them here as late as the twenty-third). 
They congregate ‘“‘ upon the salt marshes during the latter part 
of August and first of September, literally by millions ; the air 
is so completely filled with them that it is almost impossible to 
discharge a gun without killing some” (Maynard). They may 
also be seen at that season perched in long lines on fences, 
ridge-poles, and wires, or slowly moving through the air at a 
considerable height, generally in large flocks, catching insects 
as they fly. In spring they travel more often singly, and fly 
rather indirectly but with great rapidity, no doubt occasionally 
deviating from their course to seize a passing gnat or fly. 
In summer they are to be found in nearly all the cultivated 
- districts of Massachusetts, and in many of the wild as well as 
other districts of more northern lands, where, in many places, 
they retain their primitive habit of nesting in hollow trees, 
which, says Mr. Maynard, they have also done lately at Ips- 
wich, in this State. As, however, they are now rather depend- 
ent upon the nesting-places provided by man, they are perhaps 
as common in Boston and other cities as in the country, if not 
more so. They are less locally distributed than other species, 
and on this account are probably better known. They are, I 
think, quicker in their motions than the other swallows, and 
also differ from them in not being colonial, except in their 
primitive state, though several sometimes occupy apartments 
: 
