THE OSPREY. 



166 



suitable to spend a hot day, than among- the 

 many shady g-lens which abound on the Vir- 

 ginia side of the Potomac. 



Rough-winged and Bank Swallows were 

 everywhere in evidence, the first finds many 

 suitable crevices among the quarries and bold 

 bluft's in which to place the few straws, em- 

 ployed as a bed for the compliment of four 

 white, oval, eg-gs. The Bank Swallows, on the 

 other hand, are more social and instead of seek- 

 ing crevices, they dig- into the clayey soil. 

 Usually a colony, sometimes numbering hun- 

 dreds, seek a favorable spot, which by the wa^^ 

 is usually resorted to year after year. Here 

 they excavate long burrows nearly three inches 

 in diameter and three to five feet in length, in 

 the expanded farther exti-emity of which they 

 deposit their eg"g"s. I have found the Rough- 

 wing occupying a similar situation in the East, 

 but never in the Mississippi Valley, I have in 

 mind a small colon)' consisting of perhaps six 

 or eight pairs occupying an exposure at the base 

 of the hill, immediately West of the power house 

 at Four-mile-run, Vii-ginia. 



The Bank Swallow does not always select a 

 wise situation for its nest. In '89 I found a col- 

 ony of many hundred, in fact the larg^est that I 

 have ever seen, established in a sand pit about 

 two miles west of Gladstone, Illinois, on the 

 main line of the C. B. & O. R. R. At this 

 place sand is dug, loaded on cars, shipped over 

 the road and used for ballast along the track. 

 The vertical exposure thus produced was some 



half mile in length and perhaps twenty feet in 

 height. The colony, no doubt, had selected 

 this place on account of its isolation and easy 

 excavating. Enemies indeed seemed few in 

 this out of waj' place and yet there was one 

 which made up for a whole host of town boys, 

 yes, this one proved a varietable nemesis which 

 swooped down upon them with every rain storm 

 coming from the north. Each shower would 

 wash the loose sand down the exposure and thus 

 seal many a luckless mother bird, who was 

 faithfully guarding her treasures in a living 

 grave. I unearthed quite a number of such in- 

 dividuals and concluded that the mortality from 

 this cause was not a slight one. 



A strange companion to the Bank Swallow 

 colony obser^ ed up the river on the fourth, was 

 a Belted Kingfisher, who had dug his long bur- 

 row in the same exposure, a little to one side of 

 the colony proper. Both being well in sight of the 

 river, their commcjn play and hunting ground. 



We paddled steadily until we reached the ra- 

 vine about a quarter of a mile below Chain 

 Bridge. This ravine can boast of a very noisy 

 stream, which tumbles over manj' a rockj' cata- 

 ract ere it merges its waters with the Potomac. 

 Here we landed, swung our hammocks, spread 

 our luncheon md enjoyed the day in lazy 

 leasure. 



Quite a number of birds called on us while 

 we were thus employed. The most persistent 

 of which was the Acadian Flycatcher whose 

 jerky chebeck was ever heard, and I strongly 



The Mourning Dove Zenaidura macroura. 

 (From Year Book D. A. 1898.) 



