BANK SWALLOW 421 



east of the marsh, and the flight of these hirds over my premises, and toward the 

 meadow, is so reguhir (frt)ni 4:30 to 6 o'clock) each afternoon, that a watch is 

 hardly necessary to tell the time of day. 



On July 29, 1921, at Haiikinson, N. Dak., F. C. Lincoln (1925) saw 

 3,000 bank swallows, mostly young, dusting in a road. At times for a 

 distance of 25 or 30 yards the dusty road was literally a mass of 

 wriggling swallows. When flushed from the road they alighted so 

 thickly on the telephone wire that it resembled a great string of 

 beads, and for a distance of several yards no wire was visible. The 

 bulk of the flock finally took wing and circled steadily upward in a 

 confused and orderless mass until they had gained three or four 

 hundred yards of altitude. The swallows were still circling when 

 he left the vicinity. 



A. D. Henderson writes that on August 21, 1923, he watched a 

 number of bank swallows migrating along the Pembina River, Al- 

 berta, where there were many nesting holes of the swallows in one 

 of the banks. Many of them entered the holes; a few came out and 

 flew on southward; but, as he heard twittering in the holes and as no 

 more had come out by 8 o'clock, he concluded that they were spending 

 the night in the holes. 



The great mass of the bank swallows leave the northern section 

 of their breeding range during the month of August but a certain 

 number linger over until September. It is very unusual to find a 

 bank swallow in Canada or Northern United States after the first 

 of October. A few bank swallows spend the winter along our 

 southern border, but the great bulk of them pass farther i^outh, mi- 

 grating via the Bahamas and West Indies but chiefly via Mexico to 

 Brazil, northern Argentina, and central Chile. 



Bird handing. — Much valuable information on the migratory 

 movements of bank swallows has been obtained by means of bird 

 banding. Most of the returns from very extensive banding have 

 been limited to birds recaptured in their nesting colonies, but Mr. 

 Lincoln (1939) has reported that one banded at Clear Lake, Ind., 

 on June 12, 1932, was found, probably dead, in a house near Yquitos, 

 Peru, in June 1936; and another banded at Ephraim, Wis., on June 

 8, 1933, was found dead at Manistique, Mich., on June 30, 1934. 



Dr. Stoner (1937) had, up to that time, banded 4,925 bank swal- 

 lows, of which 3,044 were young and 1,881 Avere adults taken at vari- 

 ous nesting colonies in Iowa and New York. Of the total of 3,044 

 young bank swallows banded, 31 were captured as returns, and of 

 these 6 (19,3 percent) were recovered in the same colony as reared 

 and banded. Of the 1,&81 adult bank swallows banded, 68 were 

 captured as returns and of these 51 (75 percent) were recovered in 

 the same colony as originally banded. Stoner concludes from the 



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