A SWALLOW 
ROOST AT WATERVILLE, MAINE. 
BY ABBY F. C. BATES. 
NOT FAR from where a small stream, called the Messalonskee, 
ioins the Kennebec River, one may see at evening rom e 
middle of July to about the third week in September, an interest- 
inp - sisrlrt in the bird line. . . . 
The willow trees along the banks of this stream, P-trc^arly 
dose row some five or six hundred feet in length, form the 
roosting place of vast numbers of Swallows. During the fore- 
noon and early afternoon very few Swallows are to be seen in the 
sky — indeed they are conspicuous by their absence, _ 
little before sunset the birds begin to arrive in the vicinity, flyi g, 
sailing chasing each other around in the upper air, everywhere 
. . , g ’ , T. -nnrtV, and south, east and west, in they 
[ ever saw'them perform. Ocoasiorrally the, drop down into the 
ree, like pieces of paper, but often* the final alight, „g is a 
-ombined movement, sometimes in the shape of air inverted cone, 
— usually in a grand sweep after theft most elaborate evolution. 
Frequently they swoop out from the trees company after company, 
times before ,!,« las, settling, their wings no. on , making 
a tremendous whirring, but a perceptible movement o the am 
Their chattering keeps up from half to three quarters of an hour 
after they settle in the trees and their dark little bodies again 
that having asked six men of reputed good judgment 
to gle their individual ideas of the number of Swallows when thxs congregat g 
SSS5 -SSSss 
them but at the time when they are best massed and sufficiently near 
photograph, the light is so dim that nothing whatever appears on 
