400 
SINGING BIRDS. 
ing season that the Barn Swallow. In the spring their pro- 
tracted, angry contentions, and rapid chatter are often heard in 
the air. Their food is similar to that of the species above 
mentioned, and they make a snapping sound with the bill in 
the act of seizing their prey. They proceed to the South in 
September, and according to the observations of Audubon 
pass nearly, if not quite, the whole winter in the cypress swamps 
near to New Orleans, and probably in the Mexican vicinity. 
He observed them about the middle of December, and also 
near to the close of January. “ During the whole winter many 
retired to the holes around houses, but the greater number 
resorted to the lakes, and spent the night among the branches 
of the wax-myrtle,” whose berries at this season afford them a 
support on which they fatten, and are then considered as excel- 
lent food. About sunset they usually began to flock together 
at a peculiar call, and were then seen almost in clouds moving 
towards the neighboring lagoons or the estuaries of the Mis- 
sissippi. Before alighting they perform their aerial evolutions 
to reconnoitre the place of roosting, soon after which they 
rapidly descend as it were in a spiral vortex almost like the 
fall of a water-spout, and when within a few feet of the wax- 
myrtles they disperse and settle at leisure ; but their twittering 
and the motions of their wings are heard throughout the night. 
At dawn they rise, at first flying low over the waters which 
they almost touch, and then rising gradually separate in quest 
of food. During their low flight numbers of them are often 
killed by canoe-men with the mere aid of their paddles 
(Aububon). This predilection for the borders of lakes and 
ponds led some of the ancient writers to believe that Swallows 
retired to the bottom of the water during the winter; and 
some fishermen on the coast of the Baltic pretended to have 
taken them up in their nets in large knots, clinging together 
by their bills and claws in a state of torpidity. 
