1 66 Twelve Months With 



and carrying them off in their bills. Indeed their 

 feet are so slender and frail they are unable to 

 perch across a limb in the usual way, and they use 

 them to cling to the side of the wall of the chimney 

 after the manner of the woodpeckers, using the 

 tail as a support. Because of this habit, doubtless 

 long continued, the shafts of the tail feathers extend 

 beyond the vanes. 



The swifts are very rapid flyers, and as they dart 

 about in the late afternoon, their rolling twitter 

 may be easily heard high overhead. Riley doubt- 

 less referred to the "chimney swallows" when he 

 wrote : 



"Sweet as swallows swimming through 

 Eddyings of dusk and dew." 



When flying they are similar in appearance to- 

 the swallows, but they are less graceful, and some- 

 times sail with their wings held aloft over their 

 heads, which is the attitude they always assume 

 when dropping into a chimney. Formerly they 

 nested in hollow trees and caves, but now they nest 

 and roost exclusively in disused chimneys. Their 

 nests are made of dead twigs glued to the chimney 

 wall by a mucilaginous saliva excreted from the 

 bird's mouth. They are generally found associated 

 in scattered companies, and when roosting and 

 nesting are eminently gregarious. It is an inter- 

 esting sight to watch a colony of swifts going to 

 roost in an old chimney which they have selected 



