Vol.6• ] GeneralNotes 1"t3 •944 -•

The fact that these nestswere forty-one, ninety-four, and one hundred and five inchesfrom the ground (eighty inchesaverage height) may be attributed to the fact that no groundcover was available. As there wasabundant food supply, the birdsutilized the only coverat hand and the nestswere thusnecessarily close togetherand somedistance from the ground.--RoBERTG. L•,r•r•r•G,•5 Chatsworth Drive, Toronto.

ChimneySwifts (?) at Manaus,• --At dusk on March 28, 29, and $0, 1945, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/61/1/143/5245620 by guest on 02 October 2021 a cloudof thousandsof swifts,resembling in everyvisible detail our North Amer- ican ChimneySwift (Chaeturapelaglca), was seen hanging over a large, abandoned, red chimneyin the of Manaus,situated on the about a thousand milesup the Amazonvalley. The chimneyin questionis aboutsixty feet in height and standsnear the southeasternI/mRs of the wherea deep,finger-like inlet of the Negro leadsinland from its mouth on the northern bank of the great river. This body of , known as the Igarap• da Cachoeirinha,winds northeastward past a tiny island bearing the picturesquename of Ilha Mte. Chrisw, and the chimneystands on the mainland but a short distancenorthwest of tiffs island. The circumstances under which these observations were made are worth review- ing becauseof the problem involved, for if this sight record can be later sub- stantiated by specimens,it will be of the highest value in uncoveringone of the last unknown winter rangesof a North American m/grant bird, a range which has defied thorough collectorsso completelyfor two centuriesthat we have no evidencebeyond logical suppositionthat this specieswinters in South America. Our only recordsof the millions of Chimney Swifts that annually depart from these shoresare of a few birds taken in Nicaragua and Panama, and certain re- liable sight recordsof migratingflocks over the Caribbeanarea. In fact, one feels inclined to bow to old Olaus Magnus, Archduke of Upsala, and to ponder his ostensiblyfactual illustration showingfishermen seining torpid swifts and other such creatures from the bottom of the seal However, since his time in the 16th century, we have becomeassured that birds are not among the varied forms of animal life which hibernate, and the old Archduke has fallen into disrepute. Some among us have written that when the secretof our Chimney Swifts' mi- gration is finally divulged,in all probability the key W the puzzlewill be found somewherein the vast valley of the Amazon. Whereas in easternNorth America Chimney Swifts are the sole representativesof their family, in the Amazonian region they may have remained effectivelyhidden among many other forms of swifts, nearly all of which at any distanceare quite similar in appearance--with the exceptionof the Palm Swiftsof the genusRelnarda. Becauseof this similarity, exact recordsmust, of necessity,be in the form of collectedspecimens, since most sight records,perhaps even as here recorded,are wo uncertain. The chief pur- pose of this note, then, is to record an observationfor the benefit of future investigawrs. Our first view of the Manaus'Chimney Swifts' took placejust beforedusk on Sunday,March 28, when, after a day of hunting, we were returning by launch with a party of six men includingnaturalist George A. Seaman. As the en- tered Igarap• da Cachoeirinhawithin the limits of the city, as evidencedby the hundreds of houseshugging its steep banks, I saw the flock and said: "Lookl Chimney Swifts." A flock of these birds settling into a chimney is quite notice- able and so at that time and during the two succeedingevenings when we passed XS•elled 'Manaus,' according to modern Brazilian orthography; formerly Manrios. GeneralNotes [Auk I. Jan.

that way after workingdown river, the birds were plainly and simply"Chimney Swifts,migrants from the States." That first eveningthey were circlingin a wide, spiral cone, and at the bottom of the cone a continuousstream of birds filtered into the chimney. Each of the two following eveningsthey were circling about the chimneymore aimlessly,for we passedthe spot somewhattoo early to observe them entering it for the night. On Sunday evening, April 4, ! set out to obtain specimens,but to my intense Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/61/1/143/5245620 by guest on 02 October 2021 disappointment the flock had vanished. Subsequentinvestigation here at the American of Natural History indicatesthat I should not have wasted a moment in visiting the chimney,since New Jerseyspring arrivals begin as early as April 3 (1926; Rushing), although the first migrants usually reach the New York area in late April and early May. It is probable that GeorgeA. Seamanwill still be with the Rubber Development Corporationat Manaus this coming autumn (1943) when the swifts return and, with this in mind, I have written him that the birds may arrive early in November, a deduction based on the following premises:Swifts usually have departed from the New York area by middle October and most have left in early September; autumn records based on specimensare: $ and 9, Cocoplum, Boca del Toro, westernPanama, October 28, 1927 (Chapman,Auk, 48: 119-121,1931); Changuinola River, Panama,October 24, 1926 (Peters,Bull. Mus. Comp. Zo61.,71: 314, 1921). I have askedSeaman to try to examinethe baseof the chimneyfor feathers and other remains, and to question natives living in the vicinity about the "andorinas." Of course, the ideal solution would be to trap the entire flock, examine them for bands, and then mark them with distinctive bands or water- proof ink; there are a thousandbird observersin North Americafor everyone in Brazil, and somerecoveries would certainly be made. Probably no other North Americanspecies lends itself so readily to such a reversalof our usual system of bandingand if, in time, this plan could be carriedout, it is probablethat our ChimneySwifts, which until now have kept their secretso well, might become one of our best-known migrants. The flight characteristicsof South Americanswifts are not too well known, but, havingcollected eight speciesand observedprobably several more, ! can say that none other that ! have ever seen acted at all as these Manaus birds did. To me they were the samebirds that I had previouslyseen so often in Maryland, Pennsylvania,and New Jersey,but e•peciallyin the last-namedstate. There dur- ing September,on numerousoccasions with Mrs. Gilllard, I have pausedwhen homeward bound to watch 'our' swifts funnel into the top of a low chimney, with eachflier silhouettedagainst the goldenKittatinny sky in an ever-increasingband, gatheringand waiting that magicalinstant when they would sail off, perhaps into the AmazonValley to winter in that red brick chimneyoverlooking the Ilha Mte. Christo.--E.T•OMAS G•LIaARO, American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

Northward extensionof the breeding range of the White Ibis.--Many observers have noted with interest and satisfactionthe gradual but steady extensionof the breedingranges of certainof the heronsup the Atlanticcoast. It probablyis not so well knownthat a parallel existsin the behaviorof the White Ibis (Guara alba)in recentyears. While it is truethat the ibishas been even more gradual in its northward movements, the advance is none the less certain and the season of 1943has seenanother short penetration to the northward. A brief reviewof