416 HABITS OF THE WHITE-BELLIED SWALLOW 



thalassina is not uncommon. Others, however, have found it 

 in that Territory. Captain Bendire speaks of its breeding 

 about Tucson. In Southern Colorado, Mr. Henshaw found it 

 "not uncommon, though perhaps the rarest of the Swallows". 

 It is rarer in the Missouri region than the other Swallows are, 

 because most of that country, like the rest of the Great 

 Plateau, does not furnish many good breeding-places. In Cali- 

 fornia, Cooper found the Blue-greens on the summit of the 

 Coast Kange, replacing the Barn and Cliff Swallows, and saw 

 what he supposed were these birds flying over the Sierra 

 Nevada at an elevation of 9,000 feet. He speaks of their 

 wintering in some parts of the State, and this is confirmed by 

 the observations of Mr. Hepburn, who states a few reside dur- 

 ing the winter, being reinforced toward the close of February 

 and growing abundant by the end of March. They are a 

 month later still in British Columbia. I found them breeding 

 at Pembiuaearly in June, with great numbers of Cliff Swallows. 



Mr. Eidgway has lately published some interesting observa- 

 tions on White-bellied Swallows, which he found more numer- 

 ous in certain portions of Nevada than these birds have usually 

 been supposed to be anywhere in the West. They abounded 

 among the cottonwoods of the Lower Truckee Eiver, near 

 Pyramid Lake, in May, and every knot-hole seemed to be pos- 

 sessed by a pair. They were just then building, and used to come 

 daily to the door-yard of the Reservation-house to gather mate- 

 rials. The object selected was usually a feather, but occasionally 

 a scrap of paper, or rag of cloth, or a piece of string was 

 picked up and borne to the nest, such conspicuous prizes being 

 generally the occasion of much twittering contention, as the 

 little laborer struggled off to the nest with his burden. But 

 the birds were not confined to the wooded river-valleys, being 

 equally numerous high up in the Wahsatch Mountains, among 

 the aspens, at an elevation of 8,000 or 9,000 feet. He also 

 found them in the Sacramento Valley, a few feet above sea- 

 level, among the oak-trees on the plains. At Carson City, he 

 observed that their manners had been already modified, for 

 they built their nests under eaves, behind the weather-board- 

 ing, or about the porches, and were quite familiar. In making 

 his collections, he observed that when one was brought down, 

 the survivors showed great concern, circling, with plaintive 

 twittering, above their dead or dying comrade. 



I find no record of the nestling of this species in caves or 



