CHIMNE Y SWALLO IV. 



149 



Siich 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 observe, that they frequently select the court- 

 house chimney for their general place of 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 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 

 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 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 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 immedi- 



