. Our own birds : a familiar natural history of the birds of the United States . d upon his memory; but theappearance of the Barn Swallow, his easy, skimming,graceful flight, as he darts over the meadow, the lake,or the stream, his sprightly twittering note, and hisnest under the barn roof, are things which he cannotforget. The Barn and Chimney Swallows are by someignorant persons thought to be the same bird; but a wide difference existsbetween them, bothas to their appear-ance and habits. Theplumage of the for-mer is beautifully va-ried with a brilliantand glossy blue-blackon the upper parts,
. Our own birds : a familiar natural history of the birds of the United States . d upon his memory; but theappearance of the Barn Swallow, his easy, skimming,graceful flight, as he darts over the meadow, the lake,or the stream, his sprightly twittering note, and hisnest under the barn roof, are things which he cannotforget. The Barn and Chimney Swallows are by someignorant persons thought to be the same bird; but a wide difference existsbetween them, bothas to their appear-ance and habits. Theplumage of the for-mer is beautifully va-ried with a brilliantand glossy blue-blackon the upper parts,and a rich fawn ordrab color below; thetail being deeplyforked, with the twoouter feathers nearly double the length of the others ;while the latter is wholly of a plain mouse or slatecolor, with the tail nearly even, and each featherending in a sharp point.* * The diflFerences between the Chimney and Barn Swal-•ows are greater and more important than our author him-self appears to have been aware of. Thp Chimney Bird isa Swift, and belongs to a family of Syndactyli near the. Barn Swallow. THE CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 119 The Chimney Swallows, when performing -iheirmigrations, often assemble to the number of severalthousands, and take possession of the trunk of somevenerable tree which has been hollowed out eitherby fire or by natural decay. Here they will continueto roost for many nights in succession before dis-persing to the various parts of the country wherethey are accustomed to breed. Audubon thus de-scribes a rendezvous of this kind which was tenantedby about 8000 or 9000 Swallows at one time: Immediately after my arrival at Louisville in theState of Kentucky, I became acquainted with thelate hospitable and amiable Major William Croghanand his family. While talking one day about birds,he asked me if I had seen the trees in which theSwallows were supposed to spend the winter, butwhich they only entered, he said, for the purpose ofroosting. Answering in the afiirmative, I was in-
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1879
