296 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



house and, as the large stovepipe hole in the side of the chimney 

 was high above the floor, we stood upon a table, stuck our head 

 through the hole, and carefully looked at the inside of the chimney. 

 A good sight of its upper part was had because of the light, but its 

 lower part was dim, and no nest could be seen. Then we went to the 

 lower i^art of the building into which the chimney extended to 

 the ground, and by the removal of a few loose bricks from one of 

 its sides we had a good view of the lower part of the inside of the 

 chimney. Here we found the nest. It was about 5 feet from the 

 bottom of the chimney and firmly attached to the wall in the angle 

 of the southeast corner, which might give some protection from the 

 rain, as usually this comes with a wind from some point south. The 

 nest was a small, slightly shallow structure, compact and w^ell 

 made, but it contained no eggs. We left the locality soon after 

 but returned later in the day, and during our brief stay one of 

 the swifts came back and went into the chimney. 



"A few days later we again went to the schoolhouse to see if 

 any eggs were in the swift's nest. In this we were disappointed, 

 for since our preceding visit the building had become occupied by a 

 family who, of course, made use of the chimney for its ordinary 

 purposes; for, while we were there, smoke issued from it, and evi- 

 dently the swifts had deserted their nest as it still lacked eggs. We 

 remained some long time in the vicinity of the schoolhouse, but no 

 signs of any swifts were seen at all." 



D. E. Brown writes to me that "on July 8, 1924, a nest was found 

 in an old chimney near Seattle that contained young birds. I could 

 not tell whether there were four or five young birds. On June 30, 

 1925, a nest with four eggs was found in an unused chimney of a 

 fireplace in Seattle. The nest w^as 6 feet from the bottom of the 

 fireplace, and the female bird was on the nest. The eggs were 

 slightly incubated at this date." 



Although there are other records of nesting in chimneys, the great 

 majority of Vaux's swifts apparently still cling to the ancestral habit 

 of nesting in hollow trees. The trees chosen are usually tall, dead 

 stubs, frequently charred by forest fires and often hollow nearly or 

 quite down to the ground level, and the nest is generally well down 

 from the top, or even near the ground level. W. L. Dawson (1923) 

 says : "Almost invariably the birds nest within twenty inches or such 

 a matter of the bottom of the cavity, no matter how elevated the 

 orifice. * * * The Vaux Swift also nests, according to Mr. C. 

 Irvin Clay, of Eureka, in the stumps of logged-off redwood lands. 

 The birds enter by weather fissures, and since the stumps are almost 

 always undermined by fire, it sometimes happens that the nest is 

 found beneath the level of the ground." 



