FAR AND NEAR 



nal. Now they were all screeching at the top of their 

 voices, then a sudden, dead silence ensued. Then the 

 din began again, to terminate at the instant as be- 

 fore. If they had been long practicing together, they 

 could not have succeeded better. I never before 

 heard the cry of birds so accurately timed. After a 

 while I got up and put them back up the chimney, 

 and stopped up the throat of the flue with news- 

 papers. The next day one of the parent birds, in 

 bringing food to them, came down the chimney with 

 such force that it passed through the papers and 

 brought up in the fireplace. On capturing it I saw 

 that its throat was distended with food as a chip- 

 munk's cheek with corn, or a boy's pocket with 

 chestnuts. I opened its mandibles, when it ejected a 

 wad of insects as large as a bean. Most of them were 

 much macerated, but there were two house-flies yet 

 alive and but little the worse for their close confine- 

 ment. They stretched themselves, and walked about 

 upon my hand, enjoying a breath of fresh air once 

 more. It was nearly two hours before the swift again 

 ventured into the chimney with food. 



These birds do not perch, nor alight upon buildings 

 or the ground. They are apparently upon the wing 

 all day. They outride the storms. I have in my 

 mind a cheering picture of three of them I saw facing 

 a heavy thunder-shower one afternoon. The wind 

 was blowing a gale, the clouds were rolling in black, 

 portentous billows out of the west, the peals of thun- 



140 



