Nov., 1905 | 
FROM FIELD AND STUDY 
177 
By Watching most diligently for several days I saw the birds dart downward and over the 
cliff on the ocean shore, a few miles from Santa Cruz, California. The cliff at this point turns 
sharply inland, forming a miniature bay, and lowering until it finishes in a small gulch or large 
crevice in the land, reached by the breakers only at high tide. 
The nesting site was in the cliffs where the shore line turns inland, at a point where the cliff 
is forty or fifty feet high, and overhangs twenty feet or more, forming a sort of cavern. The egg 
was placed on a shelf or pocket about twenty feet from the top of the cliff, behind a tuft of grass, 
with which the rocks in this particular place are covered, owing to the moisture from constantly 
dripping water. There was no nesting material whatever, the egg lying on the wet mud and a 
little of the trampled green grass, just as on the former occasion. 
Upon preparing the egg I found that incubation was at least two-tliirds advanced, and the 
specimen was saved with difficulty. I took the egg by means by a swinging rope ladder, with 
the aid of a dip-net and pole eight or ten feet long, after having flushed the bird and watched 
with field glasses her return to the exact spot from which the egg was taken. The egg is dull 
white, in shape is like a hummingbird's, and measures one and one eighth by three-fourths of an inch. 
To make the identity more complete I yet had to secure the birds, which I did, after reaching 
the top of the cliff, by shooting them as they flew by a few minutes later. I still have the skins. 
I trust that this will prove beyond all doubt the identity of the take and place the same on 
record. — A. G. Vrooman, Santa Cruz , California. 
The Nest and Eggs of the Vaux Swift. — So little has been recorded concerning the nid- 
ification of the Vaux swift ( Chcetura vau.ri) that an account of the taking of a nest and eggs of 
this bird in northern California cannot fail to awaken interest. Of 
the four swifts numbered in our avifauna, the eggs of Chcetura 
vauxi remain, with the exception of those of the black swift — the 
rarest in collections and the securing of such a prize has come to 
be a sort of tradition in rarities. This may be realized when it is 
considered that the type egg figured by the late Major Charles E. 
Bendire in his “Life Histories of North American Birds,” a single 
specimen, was taken in 1874. 
Major Bendire in his work (Vol. 11, p. 183) says, in part: 
“The limits of its breeding range are not well defined as yet. Mr. 
F. Stephens considers it only a rare migrant in southern Califor- 
nia. The only breeding records I have are both from Santa Cruz 
county, in this .State, and it appears reasonable to suppose that it 
breeds from there northward. But very few nests and eggs of 
Vaux’s Swift have, as far as I am aware, found their way into 
collections. 
“Dr. C. T. Cooke writesnie from Salem, Oregon, 
that on May 9, 1891, he discovered one of their roost- 
ing and probably also breeding trees in the Willam- 
ette Valley — a large, inaccessible, dead and hollow 
cottonwood. The only eggs of Yaux’s Swift I have 
seen were taken in June, 1874, near Santa Cruz, Cal. 
The nest is described as composed of small twigs, 
glued together with the saliva of the bird, and fast- 
ened to the side of a burned-out and hollow sycamore 
tree. It was not lined, and evidently was quite simi- 
lar to the nest of the Chimney Swift. From three to 
five eggs are deposited to a set, and only one brood 
appears to be raised. The eggs resemble those of the 
Chimney Swift both in shape and color but are con- 
NESTING STUB OF VAUX SWIFT 
Cross denotes position of nest 
siderably smaller. ” 
The three specimens in the United States National Museum collection, mentioned by Major 
Bendire, measured: 0.72 by 0.48, 0.70 by 0.50, and 0.69 by 0.49 inch, respectively. The type spec- 
imen was taken by Dr. James C. Merrill, U. S. A., at Santa Cruz. 
The predilection shown bj f this swift, for building its nest in the hollows 
of lofty trees, beyond the reach of the most ambitious oologist, is responsible, 
chiefly, no doubt, for the rarity of its eggs, but I was fortunate last spring in securing a set of six, 
taken by Mr. Franklin J. Smith, in Humboldt county, with a photograph of the nesting stub, of 
which a sketch is reproduced. Although it was an exceptional opportunity to secure the eggs, as 
the dead stump was not over thirty feet in height, the feat was not readily accomplished by the 
( Continued on page 179) 
