v t 
Lake Umbagogi 
Justly $ r 
When I first visited ray boat house on June 3 the Eave 
Swallows were only beginning the foundation of their nests. On the SufaJloyy^ 
6th none of the nests were more than one half built. Today a dozen or 
more are apparently completed, at least externally. This morning as 
I was watching the birds 1 saw two come together in the air and whirl 
around and around straight down to the ground, where they remained for 
more than a minute^ in what I took to be sexual union, waving and flut*- 
4 
tering their wungs like butterflies* The other members of the colony 
S ey 
seemed b e 
A 
y interested in the affair and t e -fec not a little 
f /'y- 
excited by it,for they collected over the prostrate birds and dashed 
down almost to them ( with loud cries. When the pair finally separated, 
one bird flew off in one direction and the other in another. I do not 
think it could have been a fight^ for Eave Swallows are among the most 
all 
peaceable and social of birds and I have never known them show the 
A 
f 
slightest tendency to quarrel. Moreover I have seen Swifts copulate 
in precisely the same manner f although they do not often, if ever, 
remain so long on the ground together. The Swallows in this colony do 
not seem to be in the least disturbed by the dozen or more Bronzed—' 
Grackles which are nesting in some balsams that praetically shade the 
boat house^nor do they pay the least attention to the Broad-winged 
Hawks which the G-rackles mob every time they appesr near the island* ifcu+yJCb, 
