Gbe Warbler 



ii 



one chimney in his house which must have been used, at least for cooking 

 purposes, in the summer. So perfect is this habit that the Swallow looks 

 and acts as though he were made for the chimney ; his color is a sooty-black, 

 so that he does not tarnish his coat by rubbing against the chimney walls, 

 the feathers of his tail end in hard spikes, that he can use them to brace him- 

 self against the wall. 



I have been interested on a summer evening watching these Swallows 

 in hundreds circling around a church chimney in Plattsburgh, until finally 

 the birds in the center began to enter the chimney, the circle growing small- 

 er and smaller as they apparently poured down in the vortex of a whirl- 

 pool of Swallows. 



CLIFF swallow. (Petrochelidon lunifrons.) 



The Cliff Swallows always place their nests under the eaves or cornices 

 of some building, usually a barn, and this habit must have been acquired 

 since the white man came to this country. These nests are built of mud 

 gathered by the birds from wet places on the ground, and carried in their 

 mouths to the sites chosen by them. Many of our farmers have an unkind 

 feeling for the Cliff Swallows, as they think the mud-daubed nests on the 

 new red paint is not an artistic addition ; but if our cattle could give an in- 

 telligent opinion they would welcome the birds, for all the Swallows are en- 

 tirely insectivorous, and they must eat many flies and mosquitoes that other- 

 wise would be left to torment the animals. 



The secretion used by the Swallows in cementing their nest's, is the 

 article so highly prized by the Orientals, and from which they make their 

 celebrated bird's-nest soup. The bird-nest Swallows of China build in caves, 

 and their secretion is white, not black, as with our Chimney Swallows, but I 

 understand that chemists find little if any difference in the substance. 



Birds that build in inaccessible places seem to rely upon that for security 

 and apparently make little effort to conceal their nests, while those building 

 on or near the ground are generally careful to hide them, and they display 

 considerable cunning in preventing discovery. Robins, for instance, after 

 the young are hatched, never drop the eggshells over the side of the nests to 

 the ground where they would attract attention and cause one to look directly 

 overhead and thus find the nest, but take the broken shells in their bills and 

 carry them off, dropping them while flying. 



Frequently, birds are very shy and easily frightened away from their 

 nests, but after they are well established they sometimes show a good deal of 

 tenacity in staying by their houses until the young are ready to leave it. 



phcEbe. (Sayomis pho?be.) 

 Some years ago we opened an old ore mine where a pair of Phcebe birds 

 had placed their nest on a shelf a few feet overhead, a projecting rock pro- 

 tecting it fiom the flying stones of the blasts that were fired several times a 



