28 CHIMNEY SWIFT 



left the chimney for several nights they were 

 brought back by the parents. 



Doctor Brewer notes that Swifts often feed 

 their young quite late into the night, and this 

 can readily be believed by those who have heard 

 the rumbling and roaring in chimneys where they 

 live. 



Mr. Chamberlain, in his notes on Canadian 

 birds, tells us that the first flight of the Swifts is 

 most interesting to witness. " The solicitude of the 

 parents and their coaxing ways ; the timid hesita- 

 tion of the young birds, and their evident desire 

 to emulate their seniors; the final plunge into 

 mid air, and the first few awkward efforts to mas- 

 ter the wingstroke, make this one of the episodes 

 of bird life which bring these children of the air 

 very close to the hearts of their human brethren." 



Major Bendire, in his monumental work, ' Life 

 Histories of North American Birds,' says that 

 few birds are more devoted to their young than 

 the Chimney Swift, cases being recorded where 

 the parent was seen to enter a chimney in a burn- 

 ing: house, even after the entire roof was a mass 

 of flames, preferring to perish with its offspring 

 rather than forsake them. A most remarkable 

 case of devotion is cited in the Life Histories 

 from Forest and Stream. A full month after the 

 other Swifts had gone south for the winter, an 

 old bird was discovered bringing food to one of 

 its young which had fallen from the nest, and had 



