M onthly B ulletin 3 



RETURN OF BIRDS TO FORMER LOCATIONS 



Chimney Swift 



In the year 1900 a pair of chimney swifts built their peculiar nest 

 "glued" to the boards, about four feet above the floor, on the inside of 

 a bath-house at my "camp" on Sandy Pond, Lake Ontario, EUisburgh, 

 New York. The bath-house had two compartments and we left one 

 to the exclusive use of the chimney swifts and daily watched their 

 actions. While the female was brooding the five eggs and young, the 

 male bird toward sunset would attach himself to the boards directly 

 under the nest, hanging on securely by its sharp toes and tail points. 

 The full complement of eggs hatched and the young matured without 

 accident. After the young became old enough to not require brooding, 

 the female "perched" on the side of the bath-house alongside her mate 

 and still directly under the nest. A few days later the young birds 

 crowded each other out of the nest and took position under it and there 

 remained constantly until ready to fly. About sunset the old birds would 

 join the young, and "then they were seven" perched on the inside of 

 the bath-house directly under the nest, somewhat resembling a brood 

 of bats. For several days after the young began to fly they would spend 

 most of the time thus perched under the nest. During this period we 

 would pick a bird off the wall, stroke it, then hold it loosely in the 

 hand, when it would fly out through the ventilator hole in the bath-house 

 and come back in a minute or two and again take its "perch" on the 

 wall. Both the old and young birds became quite tame. 



We did not remove the nest, and the next year a pair of chimney 

 swifts again took possession of the bath-house, tore out the old nest, 

 and rebuilt at the same spot. This time all the young fell out of the 

 nest before they were strong enough to perch and were killed in the 

 fall to the floor. 



Thus "molested" they did not return the following year. Surely 

 this second vagary of building in a bath-house instead of a chimney 

 must have been by at least one of the seven birds of the previous year, 

 although during the winter they had, as seems well established, ac- 

 companied others of the species in travel to the interior of South America. 



Prairie Warbler 



When boys, my brothers and I spent a large part of our time 

 hunting and collecting birds and eggs in and near our home in Newton, 

 Mass. We would occasionally see one or more prairie warblers, and one 

 summer about 1876 we were rewarded by locating a colony in a rolling 

 field near what is now the thriving residential village of Waban. We 

 then found and collected four or five of their nests in the hazel and 

 barberry bushes of the field. For two succeeding years we had similar 

 good fortune in the same field. We kept the location a secret and in 

 trade secured some of the best specimens of other chum collectors, 

 including Brewster and Maynard, who were not able to find our or any 



