Jan., 1920 A RETURN TO THE DAKOTA LAKE REGION 23 
dred more straggling in from the east, a rare sight illumined by the setting sun. 
Another night at 7:12, a Crow cawed, there was a roar, and up rose a black 
horde of Redwings and Yellow-headed Blackbirds. Before going far the flock 
split, part going west to the canes, part east to a willow, a black mass enter- 
ing it. 
: During the days when the hordes of Ducks and Gulls were moving back and 
forth between their feeding grounds and their sleeping grounds, migrating flocks 
of Bank Swallows stopped off with us on their southward journey. The first of 
August a flock of five or six hundred took possession of a section of telephone 
wire over the wheat fields, looking like beads on a string, and in flying down, as 
when a Hawk passed, looking like swarms of insects over the wheat. At first 
they kept to the wires over the fields, but afterwards came up to the wires near 
the farm house where they could roost in the trees if they chose. 
Once a dead cottonwood was all a-flutter with them, more a-flutter than 
- when the wind had rustled its leaves; for with balancing wings they were trying 
to light on the sides of the upright twigs. Going over to the large living poplar 
trees, they fairly swarmed about the green tops. When on the wires near the 
house, at the slightest disturbance they would fly down over the road and grain 
field. At a loud twitter of alarm from one voice, nearly all dropped from the 
wires, but when nothing happened, back they flew again. 
In the hottest parts of the August days some took sunbaths on the wires, 
striking amusing attitudes, tilting up one wing so the lining showed and spread- 
ing the tail till it made a grayish fan in the sun; or spreading both wings and 
tail and holding them out for the sun to beat down on. But the strangest thing 
they did was to lie down on the road. Some lay as if dead, looking like speci- 
mens in a museum case, except that their backs were up. Power through Repose 
might well be their motto! Were they tired young, recently projected from their 
stable nesting holes in the bank and finding the need of Rhythm in Life? For 
even a Swallow cannot always be on the wing or on a vibrating telephone wire. 
Some, instead of lying prone, sat up and picked about; others, apparently fluffy 
breasted young, took sunbaths lying on one side, showing the light breast and the 
underside of the wing as it tilted up sharp pointedly. One lay with both wings 
up. They seemed to want the sun to sift down through their feathers and under 
their wings, but only one that I saw gave any suggestion of trying to dust. When 
a ground squirrel, ignoring their presence, trotted down the road most of them 
rose, though a few on the far wagon track stayed where they were. Among the 
large flocks of Bank Swallows I recognized one Barn, one Eave, and I thought 
one White-bellied Swallow. Some of the flock in the early afternoons were seen 
sweeping over the smooth white face of the water. 
While the Swallows were still with us, the August heat culminated in a ey- 
clonic disturbance. The Norwegian farmer’s wife at the north side of the house 
was watching a strange dark gray cloud that. as she said afterwards, started big 
at the top and circled and kept circling till it got small at the bottom, near the 
earth ‘‘like a tahsel cap’’. At this point a commercial traveler drove up to the 
house and looking north demanded, ‘‘What’s that cloud?’’ exclaiming after a 
second look, ‘‘That’s a cyclone cloud!’’ Just then a black whirl of dust sud- 
denly swept out over the grain fields. The men in the hayfield seeing it coming 
drove behind a large hay stack and fortunately, although many stacks were torn 
apart and scattered over the field, theirs eseaped. When the wind had passed 
