FAMILY Micropodide. 
Family Micropodide. SwWIFTs. 
Of seventy-five known species of Swifts only four are 
found in North America. They feed on the wing exclu- 
sively, and the similarity of their habits to those of 
Swallows has given rise to some confusion between the 
two families. 
Chimney Swift The Chimney Swift is not a Swallow, 
Cheetura although he has been confused with the 
sane latter species so long and so thoroughly 
May 15th that he is better known by the name 
Chimney Swallow.* But the two types of birds are 
structurally very different, however similar general 
appearances and feeding habits seem to be. In color 
this little Swift is a delightful smoky black graded to 
a dull gray on the throat; he may be readily iden- 
tified by the elongated shafts or spiked tips of the 
tail feathers which he uses as a fan-shaped brace when 
he clings to the chimney wall, and by the deeply set eye 
and overhanging eyebrow. The slender wings, with 
their long primaries and powerful muscles, the broad 
chest, and the small body, all enable him to prolong his 
flight for an almost indefinite length of time. The 
wings are used rapidly and not at all with the steady 
measured strokes common to some of the Swallows, 
The nest is a peculiar hollowed bracket, built of dried 
twigs well cemented together with the gluey saliva of 
the bird, and fastened to the rough wall of the chimney 
somewhere from five to ten feet from the top. This re- 
markable structure is anything but secure, and when 
the lusty young birds become restless it has an extremely 
awkward way of dumping the whole family down in 
the fireplace ; then the rasping, ear-splitting chirps of 
the youngsters are only comparable to the filing of a 
saw—yes, twenty saws! There are usually from four to 
six pure white eggs in a nest, and presumably most 
farmers’ wives wish they would never hatch out. The 
bird is common throughout eastern North America. 
* He was called so by Alexander Wilson. 
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