A Chimney Swift's Day 



BY CORNELIUS WEYGANDT 



It is more than four years now that I have lived in a httle 

 old house on the Wissahickon Hills that boasts one family of 

 chimney birds in its main chimney each summer. Not until 

 July 30, 1904, however, in our fifth summer in the house, did 

 I devote a day uninterruptedly to observing the birds. 



The Swifts are tardy building in our chimney, so at this late 

 date in the summer, the young, about six weeks old, have been 

 flying less than a week. Their being awing is proclaimed by 

 their frequent misses of the chimney in attempting to enter and 

 a clumsy entrance when at last they attain it. I am not con- 

 sciously watching them all the time, but so noticeable a feature 

 of Chimney Swallows' life as birds failing to make the chimney 

 at first trial is sure to attract my attention. On days of high 

 wind, of course, even the old birds have some trouble entering, 

 and in great gales I have seen them miss time after time. 



On July 30th, I got up at four o'clock to observe the com- 

 ings and goings of the Swifts, but one old bird was either out 

 before that or it escaped without my observing it in the half- 

 dark. When it returned for the first time at 5:10, I was lying 

 flat on the floor of our living room with my head in the open 

 fire-place. It was light enough at this time for me to distin- 

 guish four Swifts clinging to the chimney wall just below the 

 nest, which was exactly twenty-three feet above me as I lay on 

 the floor, and four feet and two inches below the top of the 

 chinmey. I could not see the bird's position as it entered the 

 first time; but by practice, watching both inside and outside, I 

 finally grew able to see just how it entered and to distinguish 

 between its and the other old bird's mode of dropping in and 

 that of the young birds. The old birds would sometimes dive 

 in head first, describing an arc of about ninety degrees, and 



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