FAMILY MIcropodMae. 



Family Micropodidce. SWIFTS. 



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, 



Ch&tura although he has been confused with the 



pelagica . . 



L. 5.40 inches latter species so long and so thoroughly 

 May i sth 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 sJiafts 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 I 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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