THE CHIMNEY SWIFT 185 



tress far down at the bottom of the chimney. Many times 

 I have opened the hole at the foot of the chimney and 

 taken these young birds out, but I was never able to raise 

 one. They refused to eat grasshoppers and crickets, and 

 I was not able to catch gnats and flies for them as their 

 mother had done. In fact, the mother feeds her young 

 largely on ants for the first few days, and then gives them 

 partly digested insects from her crop till they are nearly 

 grown. Perhaps they died under my care because they 

 had been hurt in falling or it might have been because 

 they had been used to the warmth of the chimney. If 

 the young bird is not hurt by the fall it may climb back 

 into the nest. These birds have very strong sharp claws 

 and a stiff tail. The old birds roost at night with their 

 claws stuck into the side of a brick, and their tails act 

 as props to hold them in place. Audubon tells us that 

 the fledgling, if his tail has grown out, can hold in this 

 way and climb up the side of the chimney to his nest. 



One afternoon at school one of the boys whispered the 

 startling news to me that the chimney swifts were on the 

 ground out by the old cinder pile and that they were so 

 gentle one could get within fifteen or twenty feet of them 

 before they would fly. He had been out of doors and 

 was all excited over his discovery. I offered some excuse 

 for leaving the room and sure enough there were half a 

 dozen swifts hopping about on the cinders, chirping. It 

 certainly was amusing to see them attempt to walk. In 

 fact, one could hardly give the name of walking to their 

 peculiar half -hitching gait. I had always supposed the 

 swift to be black, but now I discovered he was a brownish 

 black with a green gloss over his head and back. The 

 lower parts are grayish brown, sometimes slightly tinged 



