332 THE CLIFF SWALLOW. 



\'ery limited scab lands. It is true that certain Clitl Swallows, fcjllcnving 

 the example of their weaker eastern brethren, have taken to nesting under 

 the eaves of churches and barns and outbuildings, but they are a negligible 

 quantity in comparison with the swarms which still resort to the ancestral 

 "breaks" of the Columbia gorge and the weird basaltic coulees of Douglas 

 County. 



The particular nesting site may be a matter oi a season's use, piiinilnus 

 this year and abandoned the next : but somewhere along this frowning face of 

 basaltic columns Swallows were nesting before old Chief Moses and his 

 copper-colored clans were displaced by the white man. Soon after the re- 

 treating ice laid bare the fluted bastions of the Grand Coulee, I think, these 

 fly-catching cohorts swept in and established a northern outpost, an outpost 

 which was not abandoned even in those degenerate days when deer gave 

 way to cayuses, cayuses to cattle, and cattle to sheep and fences — fences, mark 

 you, on the Swallow's domain! 



Evidence of this age-long occupation of the lava-clift' is furnished not 

 only by the muddy cicatrices left by fallen nests, but, wherever the wall juts 

 (lut or o\erhangs, so as to shield a place below from the action of the elements, 

 b}- beds of guano and coprolitic stalagmites, which cling to the uneven surface 

 of the rock. Judged by the same testimony, certain of the larger blow-holes, 

 or lava-bubbles, must be used at night as lodging places, at least (_)ut of the 

 nesting season. 



The well-known bottle- or retort-shaped nests of the Clift' Swallow are 

 composed of pellets of mud deposited in successive beakfuls by the industrious 

 birds. It is alwavs interesting to see a twittering company of these little 

 masons gathering by the water's edge and moulding their mortar to the 

 required consistency. Not less interesting is it to watch them lay the founda- 

 tions upon some smooth rock facet. Their tiny beaks must serve for hods 

 and trowels, and because the first course of mud masonry is the most par- 

 ticular, they alternately cling and flutter, as with many prods and fairy 

 thumps they force the putty-like material to lay hold of the indifferent wall. 



There is usual))- mucli passing to and fro in the case of these clitt- 

 dwellers, and we can ne\-er hope to steal upon them unawares. When one 

 a])proaches from below, an alarm is sounded and anxious heads, wearing a 

 white frown, are first thrust out at the mouths of the bottles, and then the 

 air becomes filled with flying Swallows, charging about the head of the 

 intruder in bewiklering mazes and raising" a babble of strange frangible 

 cries, as the a thousand sets of tov dishes were being broken. If the 

 newcomer appears harmless, the birds return to their eggs by ones and twos 

 and dozens until most of the companv are disposed again. At such a moment 

 it is great sport to set up a sudden shout. There is an instant hush, electric, 

 ominous, while e\'er\- little Iniiui of them is making for the door of his 



