Te THE BLACK SWIFT. _ 
evening for several successive days, 
after which they would absent them- 
selves for a month. Again, at early 
morning, we have seen them filing thru 
Cascade Pass from west to east, hot- 
wing, as tho they had business in 
Idaho. 
These Black Swifts nest chiefly in 
the mountains upon the face of inac- 
cessible cliffs. This much we know, 
but the nest and eggs are still un- 
known?. The closest call which these 
elusive fowls have had at nesting time 
is thus reported by Major Bendire?: 
“The only locality where I have ob- 
served this species was on the upper 
Columbia River, opposite Lake Chelan, 
Washington, in July, 1879. Here quite 
a colony nested in a high perpendicular 
cliff on the south side of and about a 
mile back from the river, and numbers 
of them flew to and from the valley 
below, where they were feeding. The 
day was a cloudy one, and the slow 
drizzling rain was falling nearly the 
entire time I was there; this caused 
the birds to fly low and they were easily 
identified. They evidently had young, 
and the twitterings of the latter could 
readily be heard as soon as a_ bird 
entered one of the numerous crevices 
in the cliff above. This was utterly 
a. These words are used advisedly. The case re- 
ported from the sea-wall of Santa Cruz County, Cali- 
fornia, claims no nest and only one egg. If this be not 
a case of misidentification, then it is an example of 
freak nesting utterly at variance with all Swift tradi- 
tions, and with much that is actually known concerning 
the habits of this species. 
The classic instance reported from Seattle in the col- 
umns of the Auk (Vol. V., ’88, p. 424) of a nest 
“made of straws, chips, paper, etc.,’’ proved to concern 
the handiwork of the Purple Martin (Progne subis), 
but the mistake was a not unnatural one in view of 
the then rarity of the Martin. 
b. Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Vol. II., 1895, p. 176: 
Taken in Chelan County. Photo by the Author. 
CASCADE PASS. 
WHERE BLACK SWIFTS HAVE BEEN SEEN, 
