168 
THE CHIMNEY SWALLOW OR AMERICAN SWIET. 
the birds which we had procured, a hundred and fifteen' in number, we found 
only six females. Eighty-seven were adult males ; of the remaining twenty- 
two the sex could not be ascertained, and I had no doubt that they were 
the young of that year’s first brood, the flesh and quill-feathers being tender 
and soft. 
Let us now make a rough calculation of the number that clung to the tree. 
The space beginning at the pile of feathers and moulded exuviae, and ending 
at the entrance of the hole above, might be fully 25 feet in height, with a 
breadth of 15 feet, supposing the tree to be 5 feet in diameter at an average. 
There would thus be 375 feet square of surface. Each square foot, allowing 
a bird to cover a space of 3 inches by 1£, which is more than enough, judging 
from the manner in which they were packed, would contain 32 birds. The 
number of Swallows, therefore, that roosted in this single tree was 9000. 
I watched the motion of the Swallows, and when the young birds that, 
had been reared in the chimneys of Louisville, Jeffersonville, and the houses 
of the neighbourhood, or the trees suited for the purpose, had left their native 
recesses, I visited the tree on the 2nd day of August. I concluded that the 
numbers resorting to it had not increased ; but I found many more females 
and young than males, among upwards of fifty, which were caught and 
opened. Day after day I watched the tree. On the 13th of August, not 
more than two or three hundred came there to roost. On the 18th of the 
same month, not one did I see near it, and only a few scattered individuals 
'were passing as if moving southward. In September I entered the tree at 
night, but not a bird was in it. Once more I went to it in February, when 
the weather was very cold ; and perfectly satisfied that all these Swallows 
had left our country, I finally closed the entrance, and left off visiting it. 
May arrived, bringing with its vernal warmth the wanderers of the air, 
and I saw their number daily augmenting, as they resorted to the tree to 
roost. About the beginning of June, I took it in my head to close the 
aperture above, with a bundle of straw, which with a string I could draw off 
whenever I might choose. The result was curious enough ; the birds as usual 
came to the tree towards night ; they assembled, passed and repassed, with 
apparent discomfort, until I perceived many flying off to a great distance, 
on which I removed the straw, when many entered the hole, and continued 
to do so until I could no longer see them from the ground. 
I left Louisville, having removed my residence to Henderson, and did not 
see the tree until five years after, when I still found the Swallows resorting 
to it. The pieces of wood with which I had closed the entrance had rotted, 
or had been carried off, and the hole was again completely filled with exuvias 
and mould. During a severe storm, their ancient tenement at length gave 
way, and came to the ground. 
