THE BLACK SWIFT. 
4II 
Washington. But on brighter days, and ordinarily, the passing throng 
occupies the whole heavens, and a bird seen darting across a distant cloud 
may in another instant descend to the tree-tops. Altho not quite so speedy 
as the White-throated Swift, there is no bird whose aerial evolutions convey 
such a sense of power and unfettered freedom as do those of this veritable 
sky-scraper. 
The extraordinary volitatorial powers possessed by the Cloud Swifts 
permit a breadth of daily range unmatched in the case of any other species. 
We suppose that the flocks which appear here and there at sea-level thruout 
BLACK SWIFTS. 
the summer nest only in the Cascade Mountains; and it is easy to see that a 
hundred mile dash before breakfast would hardly figure in the day’s work. 
On this account, we may fairly presume that the Cloud Swifts are really less 
numerous than might be supposed from the analogy of other birds. Per- 
haps half a dozen roving bands would comprise the entire population of 
the State. A company nesting on Glacier Peak might elect to spend one 
day hawking over Gray’s Harbor, and the next in the Palouse country. 
Some such diurnal shifting does exist, for at Chelan I have seen the Swifts 
in June passing down the valley at early morning, and returning in the 
