182 KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH STORIES 



Like the Colorado potato beetle and the American cabbage- 

 butterfly, it was wise enough to profit by the codi- 

 ing of the white man ; for no sooner had the settlers begun 

 to build chimneys than some bird wiser or more curious 

 than her neighbors proceeded to look the situation over. 

 Whirling in ever narrowing circles over this strange 

 hollow stone tree she doubtless was attracted by its com- 

 fortable warmth and by the fact that it would be secure 

 from owls, snakes, and other marauders. Doubtless 

 after long and earnest discussion with her mate she made 

 the experiment of sticking her nest to the inside wall of 

 this chimney. 



The chimney swift, for that is the name of this bird, was 

 a very careful housewife, and suceeded in raising a family of 

 lusty youngsters, every one of which, we can imagine, 

 sought out a chimney as its nesting place when old enough 

 to build a home of its own. Their neighbors and com- 

 panions were not long in following the example, so that 

 long since they have forsaken entirely the ways of their 

 forefathers, and there is hardly a tall chimney in the land 

 over the regions where Mrs. Swift and her tribe spend 

 the summer that does not contain from one to a dozen 

 nests. They do not usually nest in low chimneys on one- 

 story houses if they can find others. Some staid old- 

 fashioned swifts stuck to the old paths for a long time, 

 however, and even yet one occasionally finds a tall hollow 

 sycamore tree — the favorite nesting place of the swifts for 

 a thousand generations, possibly because its bark is too 

 smooth for snakes to climb — in which these birds are nest- 

 ing. 



Mrs. Swift belongs to rather a small family, of which 

 we have only three other members in this country. Swifts 



