454 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



Rough -winged Swallow. Stelgidopteryx serripennis (Aud.) 



Length 5.7. Dark brown above; throat and breast brownish gray; belly 

 white. 



The Rough-winged Swallow occurs in small numbers in the west- 

 ern Adirondack region. A pair nested in an iron pipe at a boat- 

 landing near Barber Point. Posson ('90, pp. 107-108) reports that 

 in Orleans County it is a summer resident that may be depended 

 upon, its favored nesting locations being crevices of the stonework 

 tinder bridges. Occasionally a few will nest in a sandy bank with the 

 Bank Swallows. 



Bank Swallow. Riparia riparia (Linn.) 



Length 5.2. Grayish brown above ; white below ; narrow, but distinct 

 brownish band across breast. 



The Bank Swallow occurs locally at Cranberry Lake. An open 

 face of sand, steep, and fifteen feet or more in height, facing a 

 piece of water, will attract this swallow to colonize, for it delights to 

 hunt over still water and will also course low over a line of alders 

 fringing a level rivulet, foraging for insects that rise from the 

 stagnant pools. A small colony nested near the Point. The really 

 " good times " in their experiences came when the young were get- 

 ting a- wing, for those were the days when the juveniles were trained 

 in all the arts of flight, insect catching, nest construction, self-sup- 

 port, and community life in general. I hold the viiew that with 

 most birds the pOst-nesting period of the summer, particularly the 

 time between leaving the nest and when the adults cease to manifest 

 the parental instincts, is devoted to a more thorough training of the 

 young than the birds are usually credited with ; and that this ac- 

 counts for the peculiar actions observable in the relations of adults 

 and juvenile birds at that season. The flying young of the Bank 

 Swallow are induced to stop in their evolutions and cling to the 

 face of the bank containing their nests. My first thought was that 

 the youngsters, tired of their circling over the water, were stopping 

 to rest; but the elders were leaders in these movements, and I 

 suspect the purpose was to start the juveniles at digging in the bank- 

 as a suggestion for the manner of nest construction another year. 

 Another trick of the elders was to alight with the juveniles on bare 

 open ground for the purpose of picking up fragments of light 

 grass stems to carry away; as the season for nest building had 

 passed, it seems that such actions were to initiate the youngsters into 

 the art of nest building. 



Allen ('03, p. 149) says: "This is the first of our swallows to 

 leave, and among the White Mountain valleys the breeding colonies 

 break up and disappear by the middle of July." This is much 

 earlier than in the western Adirondacks, for the Bank Swallows at 

 Barber Point remained at least until my observations ended about 

 August 20, though the numbers were not so noticeable as when all 

 the families were on the wing several weeks earlier. It appears that 

 there is a gradual thinning out of the numbers by individuals join- 



