416 THE WHITE-THROATED SWIFT. 
5, narrowly subelliptical, 0.87 x 0.52, white” (Coues). Season: May and June. 
General Range.—Western United States from the Rocky Mountains to the 
Pacific, north to Montana, Idaho, and southern British Columbia (Okanagan 
Valley) ; south in winter to Guatemala. 
Range in Washington.—Known only from the valley of the Columbia near 
Chelan, the Grand Coulee (near Cold Spring Lake), and the Cascade Pass. 
Authorities.—Dawson, Auk, XIV., 1897, p. 175. 
Specimens.—C. 
SWIFT, swifter, swiftest, will best express the relations of our Wash- 
ington Cypseli, where the positive degree is represented by the Vaux Swift, 
the comparative by the Black Cloud Swift, and the superlative by the White- 
throat. No one who is troubled with acrophobia, the fear of high places, 
should attempt to spy upon the nesting haunts of these Swifts from above; 
for when to the ordinary terrors of a sheer cliff, say a thousand feet in 
height, is added the hurtling passage of resentful Swifts flashing about like 
hurled scimetars, the situation will try the strongest nerve. Viewed from 
below, in the open air, the evolutions of these birds may be regarded with 
some degree of equanimity; but when a Swift dips toward the ground, or 
measures its speed across the face of some frowning precipice, one sees 
what a really frightful velocity 
is attained. There is no exact 
way of measuring this, but an 
estimate of five miles per minute 
would be well within the mark, 
and six not unreasonable. The 
bird, that is, would require only 
Photo by the Author. 
Taken in Douglas County. 
COLD SPRING LAKE. 
WIIITE-THROATED SWIFTS NEST ON THE PRECIPITOUS WALLS OF THE BUTTE. 
