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from an unreasonable idea—the Chimney-Swift sticks her hits of twigs togetlier, and
glues the frail cup to the wall with viscid saliva; and some of tho Old World Swifts
hiiild nests ot gummy spittle, which cakes on drying, not unlike gelatine. Undoubtedly
some saliva is mingled with the natural moisture of tlie mud ; hut tho readiness with
whieh these Swallows’ nests orumhle on drying shows that saliva enters slightly into
their composition, practically not at all, and that this thud possesses no special viscosity.
JIiicli more probably, the moisture of the birds' mouths helps to soften and temper the
pcdlcts, rather than to agglutinate tho dried edifice itself.
“ In various parts of the West, especially along the Missouri and the Colorado,
where I have never failed to find clustering nests of the Clilf-Swallow, I have occ.a-
sioiially witnessed some curious associates of these birds. In some of the navigable
canons of the Colorado I have seen tho bulky nests ot the Great Blue Heron on flat
ledges of rock, the faces of which were stuccoed with Swallow-ncsts. How these
frolicsome creatures must have swarmed around the sedate and iinpcrturbahle Ilerodias,
wlien she folded up her logs and closed her eyes, and went off into tho dreamland of
incubation, imdistiirbed in a very Babel! Again, I have found a colony of Swallows in
what would seem to be a very dangerous neighbourliood, all about tlie nest of a Falcon,
no other than the valiant aud merciless Falco jiolyat/nis, on tlie very minarets and
buttresses of whose awe-inspiring castle, on the scowling face of a precipice, a colony of
Swallows was established in apparent security. The big birds seemed to bo very comfortable
ogres, with whom the multitude of liop-o’-my-tliumbs had evidently some sort
of understanding, perhaps like that wliich the Purple Grackles may be supposed to have
with the Fish Hawks when they set up housekeeping in tlie cellar ot King Pandion’s
palace. If it had only been a Fish Hawk in this case instead of Falco polyagrus, we
could understand such amicalile relations better, for Cliir-Swallows aro cousins of Purple
Martins, and, if half we bear he true, Frogne was Pandion’s daughter.”
Tlio following account ot the habits of the species appeared in the ‘ Field ’ for 1S89,
from the pen of ilr . Frnest Iiigersoll:—
In its primitive method of nesting wo now see it only in the far west, whore,
throughout all tlio mouutain-ranges, and elsowhoro in suitable localities, hundreds of
colonies arc found associated in a happy and prosperous liome-life. I have seen their
eorapaot villages clinging to the steep faeos of rock by wliich tho mountains aro walled
in, from ono end to the other of Colorado and Wyoming; have been within roach of
their nests among tlio crnmhliiig eartli-hhilfs along the eastern base of tho Snowy llaiige,
and in the interior parks; have enjoyed their chatter and graceful oiitanglcinent of
flight os they wero roused from their c.vtensive colonies among tlie towering headlands
of"the Upper Missouri—the scene and the hirds simulating in miniature the beetling
crags and liosts of seafowl that front tbe coast of Labrador or tho Hebrides. Ko altitude
below timber-line seems too great for th em -n o region too bleak or desolate. Here, a
more little ledge of tough gravel, where a hit of a brook has made a cut-bank, will
he the home of a dozen pairs; there some lofty vortical wall becomes completely covered
with their cloisters. Nothing suits them better than the perpendicular columns and
faces of basalt so common in the northern Rockies, against whose black and shining
surfaces their villages and the bright inhabitants make a busy and beautiful picture.
The eastern half of the country being covered with dense forests, and exposing few
places naturally fitted for a Cliff-Swallow’s residence, it appears not to have been generally
inhabited by this species previous to the advent ot Europeans, and the subsequent
preparation of the way tor the Swallows by the cleaving ot the forests and the erection
of buildings. At the same time some points widely remote wore doubtless occupied hy
them every summer—for instance, tbe lofty and cavernous cliffs on the north-eastern
shore of Maine and about the Bay of Fnndy, and the limestone precipices at Anticosti.
It is only knotm, nevertheless, that they bred in early times among the bluffs on Lake
Champlain, and that they went each summer to Hudson’s Bay. Tlie fact, however, that
these Swallows were reported as breeding at these two points among the very earliest of
Kastern records, and within a very few years of their discovery by Say in the liocky
Aloimtains, supports the idea that they had always lived there, but only showed themselves
commonly when settlements brought them into view. It was not until 1842 that
the species appeared in the neighbourhood of New York city.
“ In their wild state, as I have mentioned, these SwalloAvs build their nests against
cliffs in companies, constructing them of mud, which is often gathered from a coiisklei-
able distance by the industrious birds, all going to the same spot for supplies. V> bile
still wet, it is lioulded in the bill into pellets as large as peas, which one by one are
plastered into a firmly compacted wall, that is made to assume a shape so symmetrical
as to cause ns to wonder at the skill of the tiny architect. Normally, this form is that
of a chemist’s flask or r c to r t-a hulh adhering by its base to the cliff, and terminating
outwardly in a contracted horizontal neck, which serves as entrance to tho nest, and
ordinarily slopes slightly downward, shedding tho rain—a disastrous contingency further
guarded against in most oases hy the ohoiee ot a cliff which overhangs at tho top.
“ But many circumstances arise to vary the exact design ot these mud retorts. In
the first place, the charaoter of the foundation must be regarded, an earthen bank not
heinn- able to support so long a neck as a roughly rocky wall, to which mud will cling
teiiadously. Then, so very social are the hirds that they crowd their homes together
until every inch ot the surface ot tho cliff tor many feet, and often for many yards, square
is entirely hidden; and the structures are so compact that, like the cells in a hoiioycomb,
a single wall answers for two adjoining nests, and little more remains visible ot each
than tlie rouud mouth, which is likely to bo missliapeu, to adapt it to the irregular room
behiud.
“ Like other birds, the young Swallows return year after year to the old homestead.
But, instead of building on an adjoining section of tho cliff, they will found tliclr new
nests on the remains ot the old, late comers in many cases even building upon and
closing over tho finished homes and fresh-laid eggs of their precursors. Finally, this
accumulation of hundreds of nests becomes too heavy for the foundations to uphold,
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