WESTERN BIRDS Swift 



dark shafts, clinging to the sides. A whole flock will 

 circle in the air, round and round, until they are above 

 the desired place, then suddenly, with a concerted swoop, 

 dive into the chimney and only their noisy twittering 

 proclaims their presence. 



Henshaw says that any bird-lover may solve an 

 ornithological riddle by telling where these Swifts spend 

 the winter. They come in the spring, they go in the fall 

 and at present that is about all we know of the matter, 

 save that they do not hibernate in hollow trees, as many 

 have believed. 



I might add that neither do they bury themselves in 

 the mud for the winter months, as has, also, been believed 

 by some of our old-time writers. 



GENUS CH^TURA: VAUX'S SWIFT. 



Vaux's Swift: Chcetura vduxi. 

 FAMILY— SWIFTS. 



The Vaux Swift is the western representative of the 

 Chimney Swift, breeding from British Columbia to the 

 Santa Cruz Mountains, California; being rare or casual 

 east of the Cascades and the Sierra, and migrating 

 through Lower California and Arizona, and wintering 

 in Central America. 



It is scarcely five inches long and the upper parts are 

 a sooty brown which becomes lighter on rump and tail; 

 the under parts are gray, lighter on the throat. 



It is not so civilized, or abundant, as its eastern cousin, 

 using hollow trees, mostly, as nesting sites, although 

 nests have been found in chimneys. Their manner of 

 building a bracket-like basket and cementing it on with 

 saliva is the same as that of the eastern species, the only 



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