BIRDS OF THE PAP AGO SAGUARO NATIONAL MONUMENT. 17 



The hotel stands upon a rocky point a few hundred yards above 

 the dam on the north shore of the lake. The road leading to the 

 dam is cut in the rocky slope of a steep hillside, but scantily covered 

 with vegetation. However, despite the lack of trees or bushes, there 

 were usually some birds to be seen about the buildings, and that 

 morning I was able to list several species before starting on my 

 walk. First of all a canyon wren was heard singing from the Apache 

 village on the hillside above the hotel. During the next few days I 

 discovered this particular bird regularly haunting the hotel veranda 

 in the early mornings, gleaning a breakfast of insects from beneath 

 the lights, and giving his striking song at frequent intervals. Human 

 company seemed objectionable to Catherpes, however, and upon 

 the appearance of people he usually withdrew to the rocky slopes 

 of the nearby hillside. A pair of house finches, or linnets, were in 

 evidence, tending their young in a nest in the honeysuckle climbing 

 over the veranda. In an elderberry by the dining-room window an 

 Arizona least vireo was singing. 



The walk of several hundred yards to the dam disclosed no addi- 

 tional species, but at the dam itself a halt was made to inspect the 

 unique breeding colony of birds conspicuously in view there. Cliff 

 swallows may have built their nests on the rocky walls of the canyon 

 before the dam was constructed, but this masonry was evidently 

 hailed by them as precisely what was needed, if not, indeed, placed 

 there for their especial benefit. There were a few nests built in 

 crevices in the rock on the towering walls on either side, but the 

 bulk of the colony 75 pairs at the very least had plastered their 

 mud homes on a ledge of the dam, a long, single row of nests, im- 

 mediately below a line of electric lights. In the full glare of this 

 illumination by night, and with a soldier of the United States Army 

 on sentry duty at each end of their community both day and night 

 (for the dam was carefully guarded at the time of my visit), there 

 is probably no other bird colony in the country, whether located 

 within a Federal bird reservation or not, that is more secure from 

 enemies. 



Over the spillway at the east end of the dam three pairs of white- 

 throated swifts were darting back and forth, of notably swifter 

 flight than the thronging cliff swallows among whom they threaded 

 their way, now skimming low over the water, and now darting into 

 crevices in the rocks. The number of times the birds were seen 

 entering these niches made it seem probable that they were feeding 

 3 r oung within. Several pairs of squabbling English sparrows were 

 fussing about the face of the cliff, but whether with designs of oust- 

 ing the swifts or the swallows from their strongholds was not 

 apparent. 



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