332 THE CLIFF SWALLOW. 
very limited scab lands. It is true that certain Cliff Swallows, following 
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 of a season’s use, populous 
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-cliff is furnished not 
only by the muddy cicatrices left by fallen nests, but, wherever the wall juts 
out or overhangs, so as to shield a place below from the action of the elements, 
by 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 out of the 
nesting season. 
The well-known bottle- or retort-shaped nests of the Cliff Swallow are 
composed of pellets of mud deposited in successive beakfuls by the industrious 
birds. It is always interesting to see a twittering company of these little 
masons gathering by the water’s edge and moulding their mortar to the, 
réquired 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 usually much passing to and fro in the case of these cliff- 
dwellers, and we can never hope to steal upon them unawares. When one 
approaches 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 bewildering mazes and raising a babble of strange frangible 
cries, as tho a thousand sets of toy 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 company 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 every little Injun of them is making for the door of his 
