130 
The Tree Swallow 
hollow logs cast up by the waves on the shores of islands along the 
coast of Maine, and adds that the Maine lobstermen call the birds “Mar- 
tins/’ and often erect boxes for their accommodation in nesting-time. 
A nesting-hole having been selected, it is lined with dried grass and a 
few feathers, put together without the plaster used by the Barn Swallow. 
The half-dozen eggs are paper-white, like those of woodpeckers and of 
nearly all birds that lay their eggs in dark holes ; but why this should be so 
has not yet been satisfactorily explained. 
The Tree Swallow has many attractive domestic habits; it is not in 
the spring, however, but in the long period of the fall migration that 
we become most familiar with it. Indeed, the preparation for migration 
of these swallows, continuing from July to late in October, is one of the 
Autumal spectacular features of American bird-life ; for, 
Migrations although the large flocks are made up of Barn, and 
Bank, and Cliff Swallows, as well as of Tree Swal- 
lows, the last are greatly in the majority. 
By day these swallows skim over the meadows and the country at 
large with a wide circling flight easy to distinguish from the more angu- 
lar course of the Barn Swallow. Toward night, they gather either in the 
marsh-reeds or in the low bushes of some region of ponds, or along the 
back-water of rivers, where they spend the night, coming forth again in 
clouds at dawn. 
This fact, that during the migration swallows invariably roost near 
water, gave rise to the absurd idea that they dive into the water and 
spend the winter in the muddy bottom in a state of hibernation. From 
roosting in the bushes on the sandy bars above marshes and along creeks, 
where the bayberry ( Myrica ceriferci ) is common, the Tree Swallow, 
kept in cover by storms, was doubtless driven by necessity to feed upon 
the waxy bayberries ; for this berry, which is eagerly eaten, is the one 
exception to its insectean diet. 
“No sooner,” wrote Audubon of these swallows as he saw them along 
the Ohio River, “have the young of the second brood acquired their full 
power of flight than parents and offspring assemble in large flocks, and 
resort to the roofs of houses, the tops of decayed trees, or the sandy 
beaches of our rivers, from whence they take their departure for the 
South. They fly in a close body, and thus continue their journey until 
they reach the places adapted for their winter residence, when they again 
A Note b resume by day the habits which they exhibit during 
Audubon their summer sojourn in the Middle and Northern 
States, but collect at night and resort to the sedges 
and tall plants of the marshes.” 
Miss Lemmon has told in Bird-Lore of one of these flockings in 
Englewood, New Jersey: 
On October 3, 1899, my attention was called to a huge flock of Tree 
Swallows about a quarter of a mile from my home. These birds are 
abundant here from July to October, but on this occasion at least 2,000 — 
