146 
CHIMNEY SWALLOW; 
tree for the last time. These birds were all of the species 
called the House, or Chimney Swallow. The tree was a large 
hollow elm ; the hole at which they entered was about forty 
feet above the ground, and about nine inches in diameter. 
The Swallows made their first appearance in the spring, and 
their last appearance in the fall, in the vicinity of this tree ; 
and the neighbouring inhabitants had no doubt but that the 
Swallows continued in it during the winter. A few years ago 
a hole was cut at the bottom of the tree : from that time the 
Swallows have been gradually forsaking the tree, and have 
now almost deserted it.” 
Though Mr Williams himself, as he informs us, is led to 
believe, from these, and some other particulars which he details, 
“ that the House Swallow, in this part of America, generally 
resides during the winter in the hollow of trees ; and the 
Ground Swallows (Bank Swallows) find security in the mud 
at the bottom of lakes, rivers, and ponds yet I cannot, in the 
cases just cited, see any sufficient cause for such a belief. 
The birds were seen to pass out on the first of May, or in the 
spring, when the leaves began to appear on the trees, and, 
about the middle of September, they were seen entering the 
tree for the last time ; but there is no information here of 
their being seen at any time during winter, either within or 
around the tree. This most important part of the matter is 
taken for granted without the least examination, and, as will 
be presently shewn, without foundation. I shall, I think, 
also prove, that, if these trees had been cut down in the depth 
of winter, not a single Swallow would have been found either 
in a living or torpid state ! And that this was merely a place 
of rendezvous for active living birds is evident, from the 
cc immense quantity of excrements ” found within it, which 
birds in a state of torpidity are not supposed to produce. The 
total absence of the relics of nests is a proof that it was not a 
breeding place, and that the whole was nothing more than one 
of those places to which this singular bird resorts, immediately 
on its arrival in May, in which, also, many of the males 
