[Illustration: TREE OR WHITE-BREASTED SWALLOWS
Photographed from nature by Edward Van Altena, Alpine, N. J., September, 1898]
In spite of their large numbers and generally unconcealed activity, the answer to these questions is not quite easy. Otherwise confiding creatures, Swallows are careful to keep the exact location of their roost as much as possible a secret from the outer world. Neither the persons who live in the neighborhood of the marsh, nor the hunters who desecrate its sanctity, could tell you where the Swallows roost. It requires the persistent efforts and full attention of the naturalist to show you where and how his favorite bird goes to rest and how it sets out and enters upon the duties and pleasures of another day. You have to be after nightfall, alone with the mosquitos and other pests, in the wide, wet and pathless marsh, and again before the faintest glimmer announces the approach of day.
But select a day in the latter part of August or the first half of September, and follow me. We are up early, to be on the grounds before 5 A. M.; the stars are vanishing, one after the other, and the first dawn appears on the eastern horizon; the air is cool and misty, the grass loaded with heavy dew, but we have to plow our way through as best we can. By previous observation we have located the whereabouts of our birds, and we are now fast approaching their sanctum, all alive and alert for the expected disclosures.
Before this, only the hooting of the Barred Owl in the distant woods had broken the silence, but now comes from the depth of his private retreat, the sleepy 'seewick' of the Henslow's Sparrow, and at the same time the weak but lively 'chip chip churr' of the Short-billed Marsh Wren. 'Pink, pink, pink' exclaims the Bobolink, whom we have startled from his slumber of repose, and, as we advance, up go some Swallows, one by one, to the right, to the left, in front of us, not in masses or bunches, but singly, every few yards one or two flying up, silent, and on wings heavy with dew.
Dawn has been making fast progress the last few minutes, and we can see quite a little distance through the misty air. Now is the time when the Swallows begin of their own accord to leave their perch down in the depths of the spartina and fly with heavy wing through the cool and foggy layer below into the clearer atmosphere above, where the sun's first rays will soon dispel the chilly dampness of their plumage.