THE CHIMNEY SWIFT 



By T. GILBERT PEARSON 



%^t il^attonal j^^^oriation ot jaudubon ^otittite 



EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 49 



One late summer's evening, after the sun went down, there were observed 

 flying above the tree-tops of a North Carolina village a large number of 

 black objects. Some one said they were bats, while others pronounced them 

 swallows, but they were neither. The swarm of dusky forms swinging rapidly 

 about the sky was a flock of Chimney Swifts. They seemed to be more numer- 

 ous in the neighborhood of a large college building. Presently they began 

 circUng in one rushing, revolving, twittering mass of bird life. One side of 

 this living wheel passed directly over the large chimney which leads downward 

 to the furnace in the basement. 



Suddenly, during these last moments of twilight before the 

 Their Bedroom darkness falls, one of the Swifts threw up its wings and dropped 

 out of sight in the chimney. Soon another did the same, then 

 another and another. They went in by pairs, by fours, almost by dozens. 

 The wheel continued to revolve while a stream of birds, as if thrown off by 

 a kind of centrifugal force, went pouring down into the gaping mouth of 

 darkness. 



We stood and counted as best we could the numbers in this cataract of 

 feathered life. Not for one moment was the scene changed until the play was 

 at an end. "One thousand," I said. "One thousand and twenty-five," answered 

 the gentleman wdth me, who had probably counted more correctly. Five or 

 six birds which had hesitated to the last moment to take the plunge, and 

 now possibly missing the moral support of the large company, gave up the 

 idea of stopping there that night and, turning, flew away in the falling dark- 

 ness. Night closed in upon the great chimney, with its sooty walls lined with 

 an army of clinging, drowsy Swifts; for this was the huge bedroom of these 

 little piccaninnies of the air. 



It was now seventeen minutes past seven o'clock. Less than twenty 

 minutes had been required for the flock to enter. Since early morning, each 

 bird had been upon the wing, roaming the endless pathways of the air in 

 quest of insect food. It is possible that not once during the day had one 

 paused to rest, as the Swift never trusts the weight of its body to its weak 

 feet, except at such times as when, in the hollow breast of a great tree, or 

 down the yawning throat of a chimney, it can cHng perpendicularly to the 

 wall, braced from below^ with its tail, each feather of which ends in a stiff, 

 needle-like outgrowth. 



In the early morning, we hastened out to see if the S\\dfts were up and 



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