382 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



in many parts of the state the nest is still so placed, but owing to the habits 

 of the bird, and its al)undance everywhere, the fact escaj^es notice. Dr. 

 W. H. Dunham, of Kalkaska, states that in Kalkaska county it is an 

 abundant summer resident and nests in hollow trees and also in wells, 

 placing the nest in the latter case from six to eight feet below the surface. 



The nest is made of small twigs broken by the bird from the tips of dead 

 branches and fastened to each other and to the wall by the gummy saliva 

 of the bird, which is especially modified for this purpose. The nest is often 

 only a narrow platform, at first barely large enough for the five or six pure 

 white, unspotted, elongated eggs, but later the platform is enlarged and 

 the edge turned up so as to make it more or less saucer-shaped. At best, 

 however, it is small and shallow and never contains any lining. The young 

 are fed for a time in the nest, but usually after the second week they get out 

 of the nest and cling to the wall near it. According to very careful observa- 

 tions made by Otto Widmann of St. Louis, Mo., the period of incubation 

 is about eighteen days, and about thirty days more is required before the 

 young are able to fly. Mr. Widmann does not believe that two broods 

 are reared in Missouri, but thinks that the first nesting is very uncertain, 

 depending largely on the weather, and that consequently some birds get 

 their young on the wing while others £Cre still incubating eggs. 



The food of this species consists entirely of winged insects, which are 

 very largely two-winged flies, and presumably it is decidedly beneficial. 

 It has been claimed that this bird, as well as some of the true swallows, 

 carried bedbugs from house to house, but there seems to be nothing whatever 

 to warrant such a belief. 



In collecting twigs for the nest there is some difference of opinion as to 

 the action of the bird. Some observers claim that the twig is seized with 

 the feet and broken off by the weight of the bird, and that the twig is then 

 carried away in the feet. On the other hand, most observers apparently 

 think that the twig is seized in the beak and held there during the flight 

 to the nest. More careful observations on this point are desirable. 



The spring arrival of the Swift is quite variable in different seasons, 

 ranging in southern Michigan (Petersburg) from April 13, 1885 to May 

 12, 1902, but the average date for that locality is not far from May 1st. 

 At Bay City the arrivals average three or four days later, and at the Sault 

 a week or ten days later. 



Sometimes on their first arrival in spring, but more commonly in late 

 summer after most of the young are on the wing, the Swifts gather in large 

 flocks toward nightfall, and after sweeping in great circles about some 

 favorite chimney, they form a conical cloud, somewhat like a cyclone 

 funnel, and drop rapidly from the apex into the chimney, where they roost 

 for the night. Favorite resorts of this kind, usually abandoned factory 

 chimneys or the unused chimneys of public buildings, are thus occupied 

 year after year, but apparently these places are never used for nests. The 

 earlier naturalists record the use of hollow trees in the same manner, and Mr. 

 J. Foster, of Pompeii, Mich., tells us that several years ago, while coming 

 down the Maple River, in Gratiot county, not far from Washington town- 

 ship, just after daylight he saw an immense flock of Swifts come out of 

 "a big hollow stub" close to the river. 



TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 



General color dark sooty brown, usually with a greenish tinge, blackening on top of head, 

 on lores, and on outer wing-feathers, lightening to grayish brown on rump, upper tail- 



