26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



she took in the first instance, her face being turned so directly 

 toward the north wall that her tail projected at right angles from 

 the nest. After seeing half a dozen exchanges in position made 

 by the birds, I was satisfied that one parent, which I called the 

 female, always sat straight upon the nest, and the other, which 

 for the sake of distinguishing them I called the male, always sat 

 obliquely. 



To see only the bottom of the nest, yet to know that within it 

 lay young swifts which were being fed in some way by their 

 parents, was tantalizing. I recalled a former year, when I 

 wished to secure a swift's nest with its full set of eggs, and so 

 had kept watch of the nest ; not by climbing to the chimney top 

 and peering down, but by raising a small mirror, by whose aid I 

 had seen the reflected nest from below. The mirror served its 

 purpose a second time. I lashed it to the tip of a fishing rod, and 

 pushed the slender joint up the chimney, adding first the middle 

 joint and then the butt, in order to bring the glass well above the 

 nest. Something white was in the nest just what, I could not at 

 first tell, for mortar dust had fallen into my eyes, and it was diffi- 

 cult to keep the glass still enough to see with my eyes blinking 

 and weeping. The mother-bird had been driven from the nest by 

 the appearance of the strange, misshapen thing which I had 

 forced toward her from below, and she was now making short 

 flights back and forth in the upper part of the chimney, produc- 

 ing sounds and sudden variations in light and darkness which 

 would surely have frightened away any but a human intruder. 

 Wiping my eyes and steadying the glass, I took a careful look at 

 the contents of the nest. The white object, or at all events its 

 whitest part, was an eggshell from whose opened halves a young 

 bird was feebly trying to escape. Without waiting to see more, 

 I withdrew the mirror from the chimney and removed all dis- 

 turbing objects, myself included, from the fireplace. My heart 

 reproached me. Had my violence driven the birds from their 

 nest, thus making probable the death of the young at this trying 

 crisis in their career ? More than fifteen minutes passed before 

 booming wings in the swift's grewsome nursery assured me that 

 a parent had returned. 



These events happened on Monday, and not until the following 

 Saturday did I again intrude upon my batlike neighbors. Mean- 

 while I was not unaware of their near presence, for at all hours 

 of the day and night the thunder of their wings and their high- 

 pitched voices invaded my room. After exchanging places at 

 intervals of from fifteen to forty-five minutes all day long, it 

 seemed to my human intelligence that they might keep still at 

 night. But no, during evening twilight, and at ten, twelve, one, 

 and three o'clock, and then with tenfold energy between dawn 



