144 
CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 
is totally destitute of the soft lining with which the others are 
so plentifully supplied. The eggs are generally four, and 
white. This Swallow has two broods in the season. The 
young are fed at intervals during the greater part of the night, 
a fact which I have had frequent opportunities of remarking 
both here and in the Mississippi territory. The noise which 
the old ones make in passing up and down the funnel has 
some resemblance to distant thunder. When heavy and long 
continued rains occur, the nest, losing its hold, is precipitated 
to the bottom. This disaster frequently happens. The eggs 
are destroyed; but the young, though blind, (which they are 
for a considerable time,) sometimes scramble up along the 
vent, to which they cling like squirrels, the muscularity of 
their feet, and the sharpness of their claws, at this tender age, 
being remarkable. In this situation they continue to be fed 
for perhaps a week or more. Nay, it is not uncommon for 
them voluntarily to leave the nest long before they are able to 
fly, and to fix themselves on the wall, where they are fed 
until able to hunt for themselves. 
When these birds first arrive in spring, and for a consi- 
derable time after, they associate together every evening in 
one general rendezvous; those of a whole district roosting 
together. This place of repose, in the more unsettled parts 
of the country, is usually a large hollow tree, open at top ; 
trees of that kind, or Sivallow frees , as they are usually called, 
having been noticed in various parts of the country, and 
generally believed to be the winter quarters of these birds, 
where, heaps upon heaps, they dozed away the winter in a 
state of torpidity. Here they have been seen on their resur- 
rection in spring, and here they have again been remarked 
descending to their deathlike sleep in autumn. 
Among the various accounts of these trees that might be 
quoted, the following are selected as bearing the marks of 
authenticity. 44 At Middlebury, in this state,” says Mr 
Williams, {History of Vermont^ p. 16,) 44 there was a large 
hollow elm, called by the people in the vicinity, the Swallow 
2 
