14 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XV 
lower animals have developed some other faculties as substitutes for color vision 
and binocular vision is not yet determined. Experimentation, properly con- 
trolled, along these lines, is difficult, but if the matter of concealing coloration is 
ever to be settled, naturalists must begin to pav more attention to the work of 
the experimental psychologists, testing the results of their experiments, wherever 
possible, by field observations. Until there is some reason for thinking that col- 
oration is necessary for the concealment of animals from their enemies, or that 
coloration would be efifectual for that purpose, the doctrine, in view of all the 
apparent exceptions and inconsistencies, stands on rather insecure ground. There 
is no reason for assuming that animals in their natural habitat appear to other 
animals as they appear to man. 
Finally, the camera does not represent animals in their habitat as they ap- 
pear to man, both on account of the lack of color and relief, and great reduction 
of scale in order to show habitat. Stereoscopic views would correct the latter, 
if it were economically practical to ])ublish them, but color photography has not 
yet developed far enough for general use in the field. It is fairly safe to say that 
no photograph has yet been published which exhibited the animal as clearly as 
it was visible to the human eye. Some authors have frankly acknowledged this 
in discussing concealing coloration, hut others have said the opposite. Especial- 
Iv reprehensible is the indulgence in taking ]diotographs out of focus in order to 
obscure outlines and jiatterns, ignoring- scale and perpective in paintings and 
drawings, and placing obi'ects in front of one figure to obscure it in order to 
show that it is concealingly colored, and omitting the objects from before another 
figure to show that it is not. all of which have been practiced in advocacy of the 
concealing coloration doctrine. 
SWALLOWS AND BLD-BUGS 
By EDWARD R. WARREN 
I N ;\1Y paper in the iMay-June Condor, 1912. entitled “Some North-cen- 
tral Colorado Bird Notes,” I referred to the belief that swallows harbor 
bed-bugs as ridiculous ; and now I have to confess that possibly I did not 
know as much as I thought I did, a not uncommon failing with us all. Some 
time after the paper was published, W. Leon Dawson in a very courteous letter, 
called my attention to the fact that he had found Cliff Swallows’ nests badly in- 
fested with bed-bugs, in one case so much so that the colony had been deserted. 
He reported this in "The Birds of Washington," page 333. This started me to 
looking into the matter, something I had not done before, and as it would seem 
that not very many are posted on the subject, and in fact but little definite has 
been ])ublished that T have been able to find, I have thought it worth while to 
write up what little T have hecn able to learn about the matter, .together with a 
few observations of mv own. in the hope that it may be the means of bringing out 
further information. Certainly ornithologists should do their part in ascertain- 
ing whether or not swallows are guilty of bringing .such disagreeable pests into 
human habitations. 
I found that a bug {Acanthia Iiinindinis) , belonging to the same genus as 
the true bed-bug {Acanthia Icctiilaria) , is parasitic on swallows, pigeons, 
chickens, and liats. It should perhaps be stated that the Lrench authority, L. 
Gedoelst, places it in another genus because of certain structural differences, 
