Double Set of Cliff Swallow’s Eggs. 
Being in need of a few sets of Cliff Swallow’s 
eggs ( Petrochelidon lunifrons) I started with a 
friend of mine, one evening in the early part of 
June, 1888, for a colony where I had previously 
obtained their eggs. 
108 ORNITfr 
The Cliff Swallow is not known to breed 
in the southern portion of its United 
States range. Nests south of the par- 
allel of 38° are very rare. The following 
note from Waverly, Miss., 33 34 , is therefore 
the more interesting : On April 10, a pair 
of these Swallows appeared and soon 
commenced house-building. Two broods 
were raised and the nest, which was a 
great curiosity in that country, is still pre- 
served. Had one seen the thousands and 
thousands of these Swallows, which one 
evening in the last of July were nesting 
on a marsh near Red Rock, Indian Terri- 
tory, he would have been tempted to be- 
lieve that Prof. Aughey’s two thousand 
nests had emptied their entire contents on 
this particular place. 
We found the colony much larger than when ! 
I last visited it, and most of the sets were fresh 
and complete. After taking several sets of 
five and six eggs, I put my hand in a nest 
which seemed to be literally full of eggs, and 
I thought at once of the dreams I had had of 
taking phenomenally large sets of eggs. 
The nest was in a difficult position to get at, 
and the eggs could only be taken out one at a 
time. I counted them up to eight to myself 
and that was too much, so I counted out aloud 
“9, 10, 11,” which cleaned out the nest. It 
had got too dark to examine them, so packing 
them up carefully wo started for home. 
Upon examining them wo could see at once 
that they were laid by two birds, as six of the 
eggs wore much larger than the other five, and 
much more heavily marked, and it was further 
proved upon attempting to blow them. In the 
six eggs the incubation was nearly completed, 
while in the five eggs, two of them were fresh, 
and in the other three incubation had com- 
menced, showing that this set had been sat 
upon from the time the first one was laid. 
C. K Hoyle. 
W. Millbury, Mass. 
O &Q. XlV^Jaine. 1889 p. 88-80 
Cliff Swallow, ( Petrochelidon lunifrons). 
Abundant Summer resident. Arrives from May 
3 to 8. Breeds, nests beneath the eaves of barns. 
It is no uncommon thing to see a hundred or 
more of the gourd-shaped mud nests of this spe- 
cies beneath the eaves of one barn. The nests 
are repaired and used for many years m succes- 
sion if not disturbed. A few ignorant farmers 
destroy them as they do not want the Swallows 
around their barns, but usually they aie pio- 
tected. This species associates closely with the 
preceding, being equally industrious and social, 
and much more abundant. For a few weeks be- 
fore their departure for the South, large numbers 
of Barn and Cliff Swallows frequently alight upon 
the telegraph and telephone wires, especially dur- 
ing damp and rainy weather, hundreds of them 
often being on the wire at_o£ce. ( — 
O.&O. X. May. 1885 . 0 .;/ 
T S77- 1 ipliff Swallow Nesting in December. By H. D. Moore, M.D. 
ibid. , p. 104. For, & Stream, Vol c 34 
2003. Changing' Habits in the Nesting of Birds. By L. T. Meyer. 
Ibid., Vol. II, No. 2, Sept., 1S86, p. 17. — Chcetura pelagica, Passer do- 
mesticus , Pet rochelidon lunifrons, Sitta carolinensis , Si alia sialis. Bcssier K staralietR 
Birds of Ventura Co., California. 
B. W. ETermann. 
154. * Petrochelidon lunifrons. (612.) Cliff Swallow. — An abundant 
summer resident. In 1881, a colony of more than a hundred pairs nested 
in a shed in Santa Paula. The nests were fastened to the rafters, much 
after the manner of the Barn Swallow. Many horse-hairs were plastered 
into the nests and these often caused the death of the builders. I took 
from this shed some six or eight dead birds which I found hanging about 
the nests, th'ey having gotten entangled in the haips. 
Amk, 3, April, 1886. p. 183 
