ee 
THE NIDOLOGIST 
63 
young. As soon as the young are able to 
look after themselves, the birds become 
very noisy and can be heard calling from 
all portions of the locality. The cries are 
kept up until the winter season and often 
continue for hours in the early part of the 
day. Ihave never been able to account 
for the continuous screeching, though it 
may be the voung crying for food. 
“The food consists of insects, mammals 
and snakes, and they seldom go any dis- 
tance from the river in search of it. I 
have never seen them in the hills and very 
seldom over half a mile from the groves I 
have mentioned. ‘They are often shot, as 
they are said to kill chickens, but I have 
been unable to secure proof of this state- 
ment, and do not believe it, for there are 
about twenty-five chicken ranches within 
a radius of half a mile of one pair and I 
have never heard any complaint about 
them while they are raising their young, 
but later on, when the Cooper’s and Sharp- 
skinned Hawks arrive, the poultrymen 
raise a complaint and I feel that it is for 
the acts of Cooper’s and the Sharp-shinned 
Hawks that they suffer. I have often 
wondered how they manage to live in this 
locality, for hunters are numerous and will 
shoot a Hawk on sight, but still they 
appear in nesting season. Though I know 
two were killed this year, I have hopes 
that I will find both pairs in their old 
homes by the last of March.’’ Four sets 
of eggs of the Red-bellied Hawk were ex- 
hibited. © 
Mr. R. B. Moran of San Luis Obispo 
read a paper as follows: 
Nesting of the White-throated Swift. 
“After the failure to collect a set ot 
Swift’s eggs in 1894 as reported in the May 
NrpoLocist, we hoped to be sure of a take 
in 1895 but our luck was even worse than 
that of the preceding year. Visiting the nest 
site several times during the spring, and 
not seeing anything of the Swifts or of anew 
nest, we supposed the place to have been 
deserted, but chancing to return about the 
first of August I found a nest containing 
several young just hatched. In ’96, profit- 
ing by previous experiences, we watched 
the place closely, first seeing the bird on 
May 1. On May the oth the nest had been 
build up and the bird was on it, but it con- 
tained no eggs. On May 16 the nest con- 
tained eggs but it proved to be no easy task 
to remove them in safety. My companion 
was just able to reach the nest by standing 
on my shoulders and holding on to a pole 
with one hand. The chief difficulty was 
that the crevice was so narrow that he 
could just get his hand in; but after the 
expenditure of some little time and trouble 
he transferred five fresh eggs to me. Mean- 
while the bird did not leave but crawled a 
few inches to one side of the crevice as she 
had done on all of our previous visits. 
“The male wes only seen to approach 
the place once and at that, only to dart past 
the cave once or twice. At almost any time 
however a number of Swifts might be seen 
as they darted here and there, occasionally 
uttering their shrill cry. The nest was 
elliptical in shape; the measurements were 
five by three by four inches deep with a 
depression of one and one-half inches. It 
was composed of feathers and a little dry 
grass glued together and firmly attached in 
the crevice. The eggs were elongated in 
shape, clear-white, resembling those of the 
Tree Swallow. They are sparingly speckled 
with black, which kowever is not really 
coloring of the shellas it can be erased with 
a damp finger so easily that we had trouble 
in preserving it while blowing. The eggs 
measure as follows: .88x.55; .83X.55; -83X 
+54; -90x.55 and .86x.55 in inches. 
‘‘We next visited a granite cliff some 200 
feet high, which was tenanted by a number 
of Swifts. Discovering a nest about three 
feet within a crevice, and which contained 
no eggs, I procured the nest by means of a 
wire. Climbing on top of a projecting pin- 
nacle the Swifts would dart within a few 
feet of us uttering their peculiar twittering 
cry. One was seen to dart into a crack 
only two or three inches wide but which 
apparently went in to a great distance, just 
where the cliff projected some 25 feet out- 
ward; after which the twittering could be 
heard within. Another was seen to dart 
down and up behind a large boulder, lodged 
in a crevice about two feet wide almost 
directly under the other but only a short 
distance up. Climbing up I managed to 
wedge myself into the crack in order to feel 
behind the boulder, but could reach nothing. 
As I was sliding down the Swifts could be 
heard inside and presently one flew out. 
Trying again with no better success, just 
as I was sliding down a second bird came 
out. 
“By watching the Swifts circling around 
in the vicinity of my take my companion 
and I were able to discover three cracks in 
