288 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



3^oiing birds "had left their native recesses." Of this visit he Says: 

 "I concluded that the numbers resorting to it had not increased; 

 but I found many more females and young than males, among up- 

 wards of fifty, which were caught and opened." 



Musselman (1926), writing of SM'ifts overtaken by wintry condi- 

 tions with snow in Quincy, 111., says: "I discovered that on days 

 when the thermometer indicated an approach to the freezing point 

 the birds remained in the chimneys until about nine o'clock in the 

 morning. During the daj^time the birds quickly returned from their 

 feeding over the river, circled but a time or two, and dropped 

 into the chimney until warm. * * * 



"The most popular chimneys were those which connected below 

 with the basement, and served, therefore, as warm air flues. In such 

 chimneys the temperature reached 70°. Little wonder that the birds 

 preferred these chimneys on damp and cold nights !" 



The two following quotations describe very unusual departures 

 from the swift's regular habit of roosting. 



Latham (1920), writing from Orient, Long Island, N. Y., states: 



About oue p. M. August 17, 1919, while collecting insects near the eastern 

 border of a broad brackish meadow, my attention was attracted to Chimney 

 Swifts iChaetiira pelagica) frequently flying slowly in from the west and 

 disappearing in the fringe of vines and shrubs that separated me from the 

 extreme east boundary of the marsh. In this heavy growth, from waist to head 

 high, were elderberry bushes (Samhucus canadensis) heavily hung with ripe 

 fruit. I selected a bird for special study. It advanced on descending, hov- 

 ering flight. About four feet above the tangle, near the farther side, it paused 

 and dropped abruptly into a clump of elderberries. Carefully marking the 

 locality, I worked my passage to a few feet of the spot. The swift was cling- 

 ing to the cymoid head of the elder eating the fruit. The ease with which the 

 bird took flight from its slender perch, rising directly upward several feet 

 above the cover and dropping rail-like back into it, was interesting and worthy 

 of note. 



The cover harbored at the time not less than fifty swifts. Most of them 

 were flushed with more or less difficulty, but some individuals took wing within 

 arm-reach of the observer. No others were noted eating fruit. * * * 



It is evident that the birds had established a roosting, or resting place out 

 of the ordinary. It is not satisfactorily settled whether the birds sought the 

 brush to feed on elder-berries or for shelter. The writer is of the opinion that 

 the bird seen eating berries was only an exceptional case where the bird took 

 a berry after alighting within reach of it. 



E. K. and D. Campbell (1926) report from Cold Spring, N. Y., an 

 astonishing roosting place for swifts, the 'bark of an oak tree. They 

 state : 



At 2.30 p. M. September 5, 1926, we observed an excited flock circling be- 

 tween the house-front and the adjacent oak trees, and above the house-top and 

 back. Their flight seemed to focus at a point 25 feet up on the trunk of a 

 tall oak. The day was dull and we judged there was some sort of food there. 

 Eeally, however, they were gradually alighting on the bark, as we discovered 



