86 Birds of Lakeside and Prairie 



even though he be a bird-lover, for seeing nothing but the 

 ever-changing color beauty of the plunging water. I did 

 get my eyes away from that magnificent sight long 

 enough to note that myriads of swallows were passing and 

 repassing through the great cloud of spray and mist that rises 

 from the rocks where the falling waters strike. People ap- 

 proaching the falls from below on the venturesome Maid of 

 the Mist are compelled to wear rubber clothing to escape a 

 drenching from the dashing spray. It is heavier in places 

 than the heaviest rain, and yet through it the swallows were 

 constantly darting taking a shower bath without apparently 

 wetting so much as a feather. Most of the birds that I saw 

 on that late July morning were tree swallows. They con- 

 stantly cut through the bars of the floating rainbow which in 

 sunshine is ever present at Niagara. There was no hue in 

 those broad color bands, more beautiful than the shining green 

 that the sunlight brought out as it struck the upper feathers of 

 those darting swallows. 



