l6 PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA. [No. 4 



head of Miller Canyon, about 9000 feet altitude. They made their ap- 

 pearance soon after sunset and remained for an hour or so, hawking back 

 and forth, usually within a few feet of the i2:round, sometimes thirty of 

 forty being in sight at once ; but they were difficult to ^hoot, as the light 

 was poor and they seldom rose so as to be seen against the sky. A num- 

 ber a male birds were taken, but of females I secured but a single speci- 

 men. This was taken on June 23, 1902, and most vmdoubtedly was not 

 a breeding bird. In the daytime, while shooting warblers and other 

 small birds in the pines, several night hawks were flushed from limbs 

 high up in the trees. I presume that in all probability they breed in the 

 Huachucas, but I know of no one who has found any eggs in this re- 

 gion. The Texan Nighthawk I have never seen in the Huachuca Moun- 

 tains, though along the San Pedro River it is a most abundant summer 

 resident. 



Chaetura vauxi (Townsend). Vaux Swift. 



From the tenth to the fifteenth of May (1902) I several times saw 

 a few Vaux Swifts flying about, usually late in the afternoon. They 

 seem to be of rare occurrence in this region, as this is the only occasion 

 on which I have seen any. 



Aercnautes melanoleucus (Baird). White-throated Swift. 



The numerous high rocky cliffs found throughout the mountains 

 afford an abundance of nesting sites for these swifts ; so that, as a rule, 

 they are exceedingly abundant during the summer months, their shrill 

 twittering notes being heard on all sides ; and I believe that a few stay 

 through the winter as well, as on February 26, 1903, I saw a small flock 

 flying about during a snow storm. Altitude seems to cut but little figure 

 with them, as I have seen them entering crevices in the rocks in all parts 

 of the mountains, and they probably breed wherever the nature of the 

 ground suits them. In feeding, however, they seem to congregate, in a 

 measure, over the highest parts of the mountains, where I have seen 

 them in greater numbers than in any other one place ; passing from one 

 side of the mountains to the other, and occasionally skimming over the 

 ridge but a few feet from the ground, screaming and twittering almost 

 continuously. Occasionally during July and August, the rainy season, I 

 have been on the divide when black threatening thunder clouds were 

 passing low over the mountains, and the flocks of swifts, flying beneath 

 these heavy clouds produced by their wings a most peculiar sound; a 

 continuous murmur, now loud and now low, utterly indiscribable, but 

 much like a crowd of people shouting in the distance. I heard the noise 

 for half an hour or more one day before I was able to place it, for the 

 birds were flying high, and were utterly silent as far as their vocal organs 

 were concerned; being probably too busy feeding to indulge in their 

 usual fights and squabbles, which are always accompanied by consider- 

 able noise. A nest of this species was, with the greatest difficulty, 

 reached and examined by O. W. Howard and W. B. Judson. on June 9, 

 1896. The nest was in a crevice in a high over-hanging cliff, and at this 

 date a single egg was found lying on the rock outside the nest. On June 

 18 three eggs were taken from this nest. Aside from the difficulty nid 

 great danger usually attendant on approaching the nests of these birds, 

 it is generally labor thrown away, as the crevices in which they breed 

 often run far back in the rock, and the eggs are as much out of reach 

 when the opening is reached as before. 



