DELAWARE VALLEY OKNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. » 



almost at right angles to the body. This was her usual appear- 

 ance to me as I lay in the fire-place watching her lift herself 

 out. She returned at 5:28 and fed the left-hand j"oung one. I 

 went out into the yard now and saw two Swifts circling about, 

 " tsip-tbip-tJiip-tsce-ttieeing ^' at a great rate. I saw neither enter 

 the chimney, but when I returned to the house at 5:58 there 

 was a great cheetering in the chimney. This racket was kept 

 up continually while I was getting a bite to eat. The noise I 

 made resuming my post in the fire-place at 6:13 stopped the 

 cheetering and scared out three of the four Swifts then in the 

 chimney. My disturbance of the birds at this and other times 

 during the day made their day not an entirely normal one, but 

 any watching of birds that they are conscious of makes our 

 records not entirely true to their habitual life. 



At 6:20 an old bird returned and fed the one squab remain- 

 ing in the chimney. After feeding its young the old bird did 

 not immediately leave the chimnej' but fluttered from one wall 

 to another, hovering often below the young one, as if trying to 

 fan it up and out by the air from her swiftly-beating wings. 

 Finally the old bird flew to a position just above the nest. All 

 was to no purpose, for the young one did not follow it out when 

 it left. The old bird then apparently tried starving the squab 

 out, for she had not returned when the latter went out at 7:45. 



No Swifts returned to the chimney until 10:30, though I saw 

 two attempt to drop in at 9:40. One was apparently an old 

 one, to judge from its ^' tsip-tsip-tsip-tsee-tseehn/." The old bird 

 would come in low over the chimnej' and spread out its tail 

 feathers in the manner referred to above, but the young one 

 could not make the drop from so low a height above the chim- 

 ney and when it did finallj' manage it at 10:30 after two more 

 unsuccessful attempts at 10:05 and 10:20 it slowed down about 

 ten feet above the chimney mouth and dropped in from there. 

 Another young one entered at 10:40 under circumstances similar 

 to the first's except that the mother went in with it. She went 

 out again almost immediately and was in again in a minute by 

 a dive (10:41). Out she came again at 10:48 and picked up 

 the young bird that had accompanied her when she dived in at 

 10:41. It again attempted to drop in with her and again 



