610 
SWALLOW TRIBE. 
by a copious quantity of adhesive gum or mucilage se- 
creted by the stomach of the curious architect. This 
rude cradle of the young is small and shallow, and at- 
tached, at the sides, to the wall of some chimney, or the 
inner surface of a hollow tree : it is wholly destitute of 
lining. The eggs are usually 4, and white. They have 
commonly two broods in the season. So assiduous are 
the parents, that they feed the young through the greater 
part of the night ; their habits, however, are nearly noc- 
turnal, as they fly abroad most at and before sunrise, 
and in the twilight of evening. The noise which they 
make, while passing up and down the chimney, resem- 
bles almost the rumbling of distant thunder. When the 
nests get loosened by rains, so as to fall down, the young, 
though blind, find means to escape, by creeping up and 
clinging to the sides of the chimney walls ; in this situa- 
tion they continue to be fed for a week or more. Soon 
tired of their hard cradle, they generally leave it long 
before they are capable of flying. 
On their first arrival, and for a considerable time after, 
the males, particularly, associate to roost in a general re- 
sort. This situation, in the remote and unsettled parts 
of the country, is usually a large, hollow tree, open at 
top. These well known Swallow-trees are ignorantly 
supposed to be the winter quarters of the species, where, 
in heaps, they doze away the cold season in a state of 
torpidity ; but no proof of the fact is ever adduced. The 
length of time such trees have been resorted to by par- 
ticular flocks may be conceived perhaps, by the account 
of a hollow tree of this kind described by the Rev. Dr. 
Harris in his Journal. The Platanas alluded to, grew in 
the upper part of Waterford in Ohio, two miles from the 
Muskingum, and its hollow trunk, now fallen, of the di- 
ameter of 5Jj- feet, and for nearly 15 feet upwards, con- 
