CHIMNEY SWIFT 277 



From the start the old birds did not see me sitting on the hearth, or, seeing 

 they paid little attention. I was much surprized to see that they always fluttered 

 down and lit on the wall a little below the young birds, bracing themselves in 

 the same manner as the young and reaching up to feed them. The young 

 would turn their necks down as far as possible without changing the position 

 of their bodies. The old birds would stretch up, putting the bill inside the 

 gaping mouths of the young, and seemingly feed by regurgitation. This was 

 invariable during the time I spent watching them, which amounted to a number 

 of hours. 



The four young clung to the wall without moving noticeably, always side by 

 side, and were fed from daylight until dark at intervals of from 1 to 28 

 minutes until July 31, when I was obliged to leave home. [The nest had been 

 dislodged on June 25.] 



After the nest had fallen, but before the parents came down into 

 the lower part of the chimney to feed their young, the little birds gave 

 a note that Mr. Lewis describes as "a loud, harsh squeal, quite unlike 

 the chattering they always make when being fed." 



Townsend (1906) comments on the noisiness of a nestful of chatter- 

 ing swifts he found inside "a small hay barn" at Cape Breton. He 

 says : "The shrill twittering of the young was almost deafening in the 

 small hay loft." 



Guy A. Bailey (1905), in a study of a swift's nest built inside a 

 barn near Syracuse, N. Y., shows that the parent bird urges the 

 young to leave the nest even before (according to his photographs) 

 the flight feathers are more than half released from their sheaths. 

 He says : 



Generally, after feeding the young, the old bird crawled over to one side of 

 the nest and cautiously insinuated its body behind the yoimg birds. The adult 

 bird kept crowding until all but one or two of the brood of five were forced out 

 of the nest and took up positions on the vertical roost. The remaining birds 

 would sometimes leave the nest of their own accord and follow their mates. 

 This was noticed especially after those clinging to the boards had been fed. 



It often happened that the adult birds would remain away from the young 

 as long as twenty minutes, during which time the little ones would return to 

 the nest. Usually, however, one parent would remain with the brood until 

 relieved by the mate. On such occasions there was a period of several minutes 

 when both parents were present. 



Plumages. — [Author's note: The young swift is hatched naked 

 and blind, but the spinelike quills soon begin to appear, and these 

 develop into a juvenal, or first-winter, plumage, which is much like 

 that of the adult; there are some light edgings on the scapulars and 

 rump, which soon wear away, and the under parts are somewhat 

 darker than in adults, especially on the throat. I have seen young 

 birds acquiring the first winter plumage as early as August 10 and 

 others still in the postnatal molt as late as September 25. This plum- 

 age is probably worn through the winter, though no winter speci- 

 mens have been available for study. Forbush (1927) says that a 

 "complete prenuptial molt beginning in late winter or early spring 



