194 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY 



the branch of a tree, packed one on the otlier, making a soHd mass of 

 birds as large around as the trunk of a large tree, but the next year they 

 returned again. Some years there are less than others; this year there 

 have been great numbers of them. They have been leaving now for two 

 or three weeks (Aug. 25) and few are left." 



"They do not fly much in the morning, only coming out and circling 

 about to get their breakfast and then go away for the day if it promises 

 to be fair. If 1 want to know what the weather is to be, 1 watch -the 

 swallows. They have never failed me. if they go away from home, it 

 is going to be fair, and if they return in the morning, it will not be pleas- 

 ant. They have never built a nest in the chimney they live in, but once 

 they took possession of another one and 1 heard young birds near the bot- 

 tom of the chimney in the cellar. They are always noisy in the night, 

 but this summer have been more so than commonly, it sounds like the 

 roaring of a great fire. They came out into one of the rooms one summer 

 and 1 caught one to examine and see how they cling to the sides of the 

 chimney. The tail feathers have a sharp spine at the end, and 1 suppose 

 that these with the aid of their wings and sharp claws enable them to 

 maintain their seemingly uncomfortable position, but 1 cannot see how so 

 many of them get inside the chimney unless they crowd themselves one 

 on the other." 



WEDDED FOR. LIFE. 



Just beneath the diamond shaped opening in the hay loft of my father's 

 carriage house was placed the rustic summer home of a pair of swifts. 1 

 remember my father telling me that this nest had been thereto his knowl- 

 edge for fourteen years; and well 1 recall when a boy of ten climbing to 

 the nest to look at the five white eggs. 1 used often to catch the birds as 

 they clung to the side of the loft, and show my playmates the spikes in 

 their tails. This was during the season of '80. The following Spring, 

 acting on the advice of my father, 1 made fwo bracelets of coiled hair 

 wire, and catching the birds, fastened one about the leg of each. For the 

 following five years the same pair of swifts occupied the nest. 



About this time business took me to New York, and 1 have only occas- 

 ionally visited the old haunts. The summer of '90 I climbed into the old 

 loft, and found to all appearances the same old. nest, and upon catching 

 the old birds, found that one still had the copper wire upon it's leg. 

 Whether the other bird was a new mate or had lost the wire, I cannot 

 state. Two interesting facts were however demonstrated, first that the 

 swift at least remains mated for life, and second that they are a long lived 

 bird. I cannot of course state whether this pair were the same ones first 

 observed by my father fourteen years before my observations commenc- 

 ed, but "my birds" nested "on the old camp ground" from '80 to '90, a 

 period of ten years, and the nest to my knowledge has been there over 



thirty years. Howard L. wood, M. D.. Croton. Ct. 



