Coues on the Have, Cliff, or Crescent Swallow . Ill 
and refreshment, when the Swallows swarm about promiscuously 
a fly-catching. In an incredibly short time the basement of the 
nest is laid, and the whole form becomes clearly outlined ; the mud 
dries quickly, and there is a standing-place. This is soon occupied 
by one of the pair, probably the female, who now stays at home to 
welcome her mate with redoubled cries of joy and ecstatic quivering 
of the wings, as he brings fresh pellets, which the pair in the closest 
consultation dispose to their entire satisfaction. In three or four 
days, perhaps, the deed is done ; the house is built, and nothing 
remains but to furnish it. The poultry-yard is visited, and laid 
under contribution of feathers ; hay, leaves, rags, paper, string - — 
Swallows are not very particular — maybe added; and then the 
female does the rest of the “ furnishing ” by her own particular self. 
Not impossibly, just at this period, a man comes with a pole, and 
demolishes the whole affair; or the enfant terrible of the premises 
appears, and removes the eggs to enrich his sanded tray of like 
treasures ; or a tom-cat reaches for his supper. But more probably 
matters are so propitious that in due season the nest decants a full 
brood of Swallows, — and I wish that nothing more harmful ever 
came out of the bottle. 
Seeing how these birds work the mud in their mouths, some 
have supposed that the nests are agglutinated, to some extent at 
least, by the saliva of the birds. It is far from an unreasonable 
idea, — the Chimney-Swift sticks her bits of twigs together, and 
glues the frail cup to the wall with viscid saliva ; and some of the 
Old World Swifts build nests of gummy spittle, which cakes on dry- 
ing, not unlike gelatine. Undoubtedly some saliva is mingled with 
the natural moisture of the mud ; but the readiness with which 
these Swallows’ nests crumble on drying shows that saliva enters 
slightly into their composition, — practically not at all, — and that 
this fluid possesses no special viscosity. Much more probabty, the 
moisture of the birds’ mouths helps to soften and temper the pellets, 
rather than to agglutinate the dried edifice itself. 
In various parts of the West, especially along the Missouri and 
the Colorado, where I have never failed to find clustering nests of 
the Cliff Swallow, I have occasionally witnessed some curious asso- 
ciates of these birds. In some of the navigable canons of the Colo- 
rado I have seen the bulky nests of the Great Blue Heron on flat 
ledges of rock, the faces of which were stuccoed with Swallow-nests. 
How these frolicsome creatures must have swarmed around the 
