The Tree Swallow on Long Island 281 



mounted high enough to impart a grateful warmth after the chill of j dawn, 

 two or three darting forms go by, one hears the diagnostic double note to 

 right and to left, and for a minute or two there are Tree Swallows in every 

 direction, streaming past into the West like snowflakes before a gale. After 

 early October the occurrence of the species is sporadic. 



A majority of the birds must go north in spring by some different route, as 

 they never seem to be numerous at that season. We know of no earlier regular 

 arrival date for Long Island than March 19. February 16, a date given in 

 Eaton's 'Birds of New York' (from Dutcher), seems purely casual. In the fall 

 any Tree Swallows seen later than November 25 may also be considered casual. 

 Attention may be called to a record in the Christmas, 1919, Census, of one 

 observed in a snow-storm on Gardiner's Bay, December 21, by Lord William 

 Percy and Ludlow Griscom. 



When one gets a good view of them, our different Swallows are well marked 

 and easy to identify. They also present differences in size, flight and call- 

 notes which one learns to recognize. However, it may aid in the determination 

 of a bird darting by at a difficult angle, to call attention to the white on the 

 Tree Swallows' flanks, which encroaches on the dark upper parts in front of 

 the tail so as to be conspicuous. The Tree Swallow also has an angle in the 

 posterior outline of the wing unlike the other species, as though the primary 

 feathers projected more abruptly beyond the secondaries. 



THE KINGFISHER'S CAVE 

 Photographed by Walter A. Goelitz, Ravinia, Ills. 



