78 
THE CONDOR 
VOL. XI 
on the south face. There are of course, as in other quarries, a few crevices and 
cracks in the face due to water and to the blasting, and it was in these cracks in the 
solid rock that the swifts selected sites for their homes. 
During the past eighteen years I have been a frequent visitor to all parts of the 
mountain, but it was in the summer of 1904 that I first noticed the swifts. In 
1905, 1906, and 1907, I occasionally noticed them flying above the mountain, some- 
times hundreds of them. In December, 1907, while inspecting the old quarry on 
the top of the hill I decided that the south face would prove to be interesting to an 
ornithologist and from that time my hours of leisure on Sundays were spent in the 
quarry. Some days I would find the birds circling about the top of the mountain, 
making an occasional swoop with bullet-like speed thru the gulch, where their 
peculiar harsh notes were re-echoed and re-inforced by the rock walls, thus making 
one expect to see birds much larger than the swifts. Sometimes these rapid swoops 
would end in the cracks, about ten feet from the floor, in the south face. I say in 
the cracks instead of at the cracks, for their aim almost always was so true that the 
two-inch opening did not seem to cause them to slow up. Some of my visits were 
not so pleasing to me, for upon several occasions I could find no signs of the birds, 
while upon other trips I could hear the birds "in the rocks” but could not make 
them come out. When April, 1908, came around I was convinced that I was 
observing the correct place; but I did not see any possibility of securing eggs or of 
even seeing them, for the seams they favored were either so crooked or extended so 
far that nothing could be seen no matter where the rope was lowered. 
During April, I was called to the East, so told the quarryman, Mr. J. J. 
Matthews, about the birds and asked him to keep his eyes on them when on that 
part of the hill, because he might be rewarded by finding a nest. Mr. Matthews 
became very much interested in the quest and as he was an expert in rope climbing 
a more desirable assistant could not be hoped for. 
When I returned early in May, Mr. Matthews informed me that he had found 
a nest of "those rare birds” and better yet that the nest could be seen from the 
crack in the rock, and best of all that he thought that we would be able to secure 
the nest by some hard work. This was encouraging news, and armed with permits 
from the California Portland Cement Co. , and the State Board of Fish Commissioners, 
we made plans to observe the nest regularly and secure some eggs if possible. A walk 
to the top of old Slover and a rope climb proved to be good exercise, after working 
hours. The fact that there was so much work connected with the observations 
made me admire the White-throated Swifts even more than I had before. 
Nest no. 1 was reached by throwing a rope from the top of the quarry to 
the ground and then climbing up the rope from the bottom and working along the 
face by means of friendly crevices. If the rope had been lowered directly above 
the nest we would have been several feet from the face and could not have workt 
to advantage. The nest was about eighteen feet from the floor of the quarry and 
forty from the top, and was situated in a crevice from one to three inches in width, 
about four feet long and extending back about two feet. The nest was only about 
one foot from the face and was firmly glued between the two walls, probably by 
means of saliva, but some of the weight may have been supported by a few projec- 
tions from the rocks. 
Judging from the rate at which nest no. 1 progrest after we first saw it, we 
think it was started about April 15. It seemed to be almost done on May 1, but it 
continued to be improved upon day by day and on May 16 we observed the first 
egg. More improvements were made during the next few days and on May 19 
there were two eggs, and on May 22 another. During most of these observations 
