CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 
27 
lows) 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 shallow 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 “ immense quantity of excrements” 
found within it, w^hich birds in a state of torpidity are 
not supposed to produce. The total absence of the 
relics of nests is a proof that it w r as 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 continue to roost during the whole summer, 
and from w'hich they regularly depart about the middle 
of September. From other circumstances, it appears 
probable, that some of these trees have been for ages 
the summer rendezvous or general roosting place of 
the whole chimney swallows of an extensive district. 
Of this sort I conceive the following to be one which 
is thus described by a late traveller to the westward. 
Speaking of the curiosities of the State of Ohio, the 
writer observes : — “ In connection with this, I may 
mention a large collection of feathers found wuthin a 
hollow tree which I examined, w ith the Rev. Mr Story, 
May 18th, 1803. It is in the upper part of Waterford, 
about two miles distant from the Muskingum. A very 
large sycamore, which, through age, had decayed and 
fallen dowrn, contained in its hollow^ trunk, five and a 
half feet in diameter, and for nearly fifteen feet upwards, 
