276 BULLETIN 17 6, UlSriTED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



"Of course this bird might have been hatched the day before, son>e- 

 time between noon and the time of the storm, which occurred about 

 10 p. m., but my impression was, from the position of the eggshell as 

 it lay broken in halves among the ashes, that the little fellow ready 

 to hatch had come down either in the shell or in the act of emerging 

 from it. There were no signs of any yolk to be seen. Judged from 

 his size and development he must have been less than a day old. There 

 had been but one nest in the chimney; and there was no possibility 

 of any outside intermeddling, as the camp was kept locked and I 

 had been the only one to enter it in weeks." 



Of the young when nearly ready to fly he says : "Found a swift's 

 nest down in Charlie Boyce's boat house on the wall about 5' 9'' above 

 the floor, and the four nearly fledged young clinging to the pretty 

 smoothly sawed board wall from IS'' to 24" away from the nest. 

 Upon investigating I found that their toenails were long and sharp 

 and that they could flutter up or across the wall at will, though when 

 undisturbed they kept well together in a compact little group, propped 

 up on their tails. When disturbed the young birds squealed loudly 

 something like an exaggerated rattlesnake." 



Burns (1921) states that the eyes of the young swift become wide 

 open on the fourteenth day. This accords with the observation of 

 Mary F. Day (1899), who watched at close range the development of 

 a brood of swifts and noted that the incubation period was 19 days ; 

 that "even at the tender age that must be reckoned by minutes, these 

 young birds were fed, seemingly, by regurgitation" ; that the "two first 

 ventured from home when nineteen days old" ; and that they flew from 

 the chimney four weeks after hatching. Speaking of t,he exercising of 

 the nestlings, she says : "The young aspirants would stand in the nest 

 and for a time vibrate the wings rapidly, so rapidly that the identity 

 of wing was lost." And of the fledglings 26 days after leaving the 

 egg she says : "They take flying exercises up and down the chimney, 

 but I believe have not yet left it." 



Carter (1924) studied the feeding of five fledgling swifts at a 

 nest built on the wall of an abandoned cabin in Ontario. He says : 



The old birds gained access to the interior of the building through a broken 

 window and were remarkably tame, feeding the young within three feet of the 

 observers, thus giving an excellent opportunity to observe the process of feeding. 

 The parent, with greatly extended cheeks and throat, alighted upon the wall 

 among the young. Immediately there was a great commotion. After a short 

 hesitation a young bird would be fed by forcing some of the food from the 

 mouth of the parent into that of the offspring. After a moment's feeding there 

 was a pause and then the process was repeated, either to the same yoiang or 

 another. As many as three were served at a single visit. 



Lewis (1929) describes thus the feeding of a brood of young birds 

 that had fallen when their nest had been dislodged by rain but were 

 clinging to the wall of the chimney : 



