Nov., 19o 5 I FROM FIELD AND STUDY 177 By watching most diligently for several days I saw the birds dart downward and over the cliff ou 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-third. s 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 ?ggs of the aux Swift.--So little bas been recorded concerning the nid- ification of the Vaux swift (Chretura z,au.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 Chcetutca vau.ri remain, with the exception of those of the black swift--the rarest in collections and tbe secaring 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 I874. Major Bendire in his work (Vol. II, 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 writes me from Salem, Oregon, .i tbat on May 9, I89I, he discovered one of their roost- 1 ing and probably also breeding trees in the XVillam- ette Valley--a large, inaccessible, dead and hollow cottonwood. The only eggs of Vaux'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 bnrned-out and hollow sycamore
O ?'-' 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 N?s,m? s,u? or v^ux sw?rr appears to be raised. The eggs resemble those of the Cross denotes position of nest Chimney Swift both in shape and color: but are con- siderably smaller." The three specimens in the United States National Museum collectiou, mentioned by Major Bendire, measured: o.72 by o.48 , o.70 by o.5 o, and o.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 by 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 paffe ?79)
