H PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



and right under this the nest is placed, making it secure even 

 in the heaviest rains. In mj' live summers' observation of this 

 nest it has never come down during the summer. It remains 

 until the heat and gas of the winter's fires below disintegrate it. 

 This offset, while it makes the Swifts' nest very safe, adds to 

 the birds' difficulties in reaching the nest. The chimney, 

 which is but fourteen inches by thirteen inches in the clear at 

 its mouth, widens a little below, but the six inches' swerve 

 from the perpendicular le;ives a space of only thirteen inches by 

 eight inches for the bird to lower itself into as it enters. As far 

 as I could observe the old bird entered always in the very center 

 of the open space. I think that one old bird, probably the 

 mother, did almost all the feeding the day I watched. I 

 could distinguish between the parents by the fact that one old 

 bird had several feathers gone from one wing. This bird, after 

 they were all out in the morning, I did not note re-enter but 

 thrice before noon, and after they had hung together in the 

 chimney for a while at noon, it left and did not re-enter until 

 dark. 



When the mother bird — for such I took to be the bird that 

 did the feeding of the young — entered the chimney at 5:10 she 

 dropped to a point about six inches below the four birds that 

 hung together, and making fast to the wall there, climbed up to 

 them. One of the four, prol)ably the old male, dropped below 

 the others as soon as the mother reached them. Climbing until 

 her head was just above the head of the young one clinging at 

 the right, the motlier turned her head so that I could see the 

 grey of her throat, and, bending slightly, disgorged, this time 

 succeeding in getting all the flies, small beetles and gnats safely 

 into the squab's mouth, but on several of her trips, flies, etc., 

 more or less maimed, fell down. Some were so little injured 

 they flew away. 



The feeding took this time, and on the average, thirty sec- 

 onds. When the old bird had finished disgorging she dropped 

 down the chimney a foot and rested a moment. Then she 

 drummed up and out of the chimney. As she flew out her 

 body was at an angle of about forty-five degrees with the ground 

 and her wings beat so rapidly that they described a dark band 



