104 



SUMMER BIRDS. 



tion, while some of its louder notes, especially when divested 

 through distance of their accompaniment, sound strikingly like the 

 song of the latest mentioned species. 



FAMILY AMPELID^: WAXWINGS. 



Anipelis eedrorum (A^ieill.) Baird. Cedar Waxwing. 



Not uncommon. A nest built in a hemlock, atrainst the trunk, 

 about seven feet from the ground, contained five fresh eggs. June i5, 

 1880. Descriptions of two nests were recorded by my brothers ; 

 one was built in the top of a soft maple about twenty-five feet high, 

 Jul}- 10, 1874 ' the other, found three days later, was built about ten 

 feet from the ground in an apple tree, and contained five eggs with 

 large embryos. 



FAMILY HIRUNDINID^: SWALLOWS. 



As has been earher remarked there are but two swallows which occur as 

 summer residents in that section of the Catskills here considered, though 

 at least one other is found in the immediate region. 



Undoubtedly the Bank Swallow [Cotile riparia Baird) occurs at suitable 

 locaUties, and the Purple Martin [Progiie siibis Baird) may also be locally 

 represented. One species of the Hudson Valley is excluded — Stelgidopteryx. 



Petrochelidou lunifrons (Say) Lawr. Cliff Swallow. 



An abundant, familiar, and characteristic species of the valleys. 

 The nests of a colony, located under the eaves of an old barn in the 

 Big Indian \'alley, were examined June 17, 1881, and again the next 

 5'ear, ten days later in the season. On the former occasion the closest 

 approach to the singular retort-shaped structure which this species is 

 so well known to construct, was a semi-globular mud shell with a 

 simple opening on the side no larger than was necessary for the ad- 

 mission of the birds. Most of the nests were of a still more simple 

 form, being merely shallow cups of mud, plastered against the per- 

 pendicular boards close up under the eaves. Among the different 

 nests every gradation between these diverse styles was to be seen. 

 In some of the cup-shaped structures one or both sides had been con- 

 tinued upward to the eaves above from behind forward to enclose an 

 opening of varying size in the front wall. Though the young Avere 

 well advanced the work of building was still being carried on, as 

 shown by fresh pellets of mud in some of the nests, so placed as to 

 reduce the opening: and it was evident that if building operations 

 continued until the young were fledged, the most open nests would 



