The Tree Swallow 
early belief that swallows hibernated by plunging beneath the waves, 
burying themselves in the mud of the bottom to await the return of spring. 
So stubborn was this conviction, and so circumstantial were the reports 
upon which it was based, that the tradition remains as one of the most 
curious examples of pseudo-science and human gullibility in the annals of 
all history. Even so recent a writer as Dr. Elliott Coues, cleverest expon¬ 
ent of American ornithology, treated the evidence with respect, and 
refused to express an adverse judgment. 
The Tree Swallow 
remains faithful to its 
winter love, and nests by 
preference along streams 
or in dead trees whose 
roots are protected by 
standing water. The 
stretches of submerged 
forests made by the back 
water of mountain reser¬ 
voirs are sure to be used 
as nesting sites. The 
piling of abandoned 
wharves, as at Lake Ta¬ 
hoe, is deemed exactly 
fit. The birds are not 
themselves able to make 
excavations in the wood, 
but they have no diffi¬ 
culty in possessing them¬ 
selves of the results of 
other birds’ labors. Old 
holes will do, if not too 
old, but I once knew a 
pair of these swallows 
to drive away a pair of 
Flickers from a brand- 
new nesting hole, and to 
occupy it themselves. 
Even more startling 
was a situation we found 
the banks of the 
Pajaro River, 
Cruz County, 
in Santa 
May 20, 
Taken in San Bernardino Mountains Photo by Wright M. Pierce 
“FEATHER BEDS WILL ALWAYS BE IN FASHION” 
54* 
