Chimney Swallow
Purple Martin and female
Connecticutt Warbler
.a short time after sunset, the chimney swallows, which were generally dispersed about town, began to collect around the court-house, their numbers every moment increasing, till, like motes in the sunbeams, the air seemed full of them. These, while they mingled amongst each other seemingly in every direction, uttering their peculiar note with great sprightliness, kept a regular circuitous sweep around the top of the courthouse, and about fourteen of fifteen feet above it, revolving with great rapidity for the space of at least ten minutes. There could not be less than four or five hundred of them. They now gradually varied their line of motion, until one part of its circumference passed immediately over the chimney and about five or six feet above it. Some as they passed made a slight feint of entering, which was repeated by those immediately after, and by the whole circling multitude in succession: in this feint they approached nearer and nearer at every revolution, dropping perpendicularly, but still passing over; the circle meantime becoming more and more contracted, and the rapidity of its revolution greater, as the dusk of evening increased, until, at length, one, and then another, dropped in, another and another followed, the circle still revolving , until the whole multitude had descended, except one or tow. These flew off, as if to collect the stragglers, and, in a few seconds, returned, with six or eight more, which, after one or two rounds, dropped in one by one, and all was silence for the night. It seemed to me hardly possible that the internal surface of the vent could accommodate them all, without clustering on one another, which I am informed they never do; and I was very desirous of observing their ascension in the morning, but having to set off before day, I had not that gratification.
Purple Martin
I never met with more than one man who disliked the martins, and would not permit them to settle about his house. This was a penurious close-fisted German, who hated them, because, as he said, "they ate his peas." I told him he must certainly be mistaken, as I never knew an instance of martins eating peas; but he replied with coolness, that he had many times seen them himself, "blaying near the hife, and going schnip, schnap;" by which I understood that it was his bees that had been the sufferers; and the charge could not be denied.
