A Book on Birds 



develops, it is said, into strains of con- 

 siderable length and rare and entrancing 

 beauty. 



Close in the wake of the Thrasher every 

 spring comes the exceptional and eccentric 

 Chimney Swift — a bird we see by the 

 thousand at a distance and yet know far 

 less of than we imagine. 



By many he is called a Swallow; but 

 mistakenly, as he belongs to an entirely 

 different family of which, by the way, he 

 is the only representative in our climate. 



Those who have never observed him 

 close at hand, but entirely on the wing, 

 in his wonderfully rapid and circling flight 

 through the sky (for he is hardly ever 

 known to alight on a tree — or anything 

 else, for that matter, than the inside of 

 a chimney) have no idea what an odd- 

 looking specimen he is. 



His head is almost as flat as that of a 

 catfish, his beak is so stubby it is scarcely 

 any beak at all; his mouth is broad and 

 large, and what face he has is ridiculously 

 short, with a fullness on either side that 



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