DUSKY, GRAY, AND SLATE-COLORED BIRDS 



Chimney Swift 



(Chcetura pelagica) Swift family 



Called also: CHIMNEY SWALLOW; AMERICAN SWIFT 



Length — 5 to 5.45 inches. About an inch shorter than the Eng- 

 lish sparrow. Long wings make its length appear greater. 



Male and Female — Deep sooty gray ; throat of a trifle lighter gray. 

 Wings extend an inch and a half beyond the even tail, which 

 has sharply pointed and very elastic quills, that serve as props. 

 Feet are muscular, and have exceedingly sharp claws. 



Range — Peculiar to North America east of the Rockies, and from 

 Labrador to Panama. 



Migrations — April. September or October. Common summer 

 resident. 



The chimney swift is, properly speaking, not a swallow at 

 all, though chimney swallow is its more popular name. Rowing 

 towards the roof of your house, as if it used first one wing, then 

 the other, its flight, while swift and powerful, is stiff and mechan- 

 ical, unlike the swallow's, and its entire aspect suggests a bat. 

 The nighthawk and whippoorwill are its relatives, and it resem- 

 bles them not a little, especially in its nocturnal habits. 



So much fault has been found with the misleading names of 

 many birds, it is pleasant to record the fact that the name of the 

 chimney swift is everything it ought to be. No other birds can 

 surpass and few can equal it in its powerful flight, sometimes 

 covering a thousand miles in twenty-four hours, it is said, and 

 never resting except in its roosting places (hollow trees or chim- 

 neys of dwellings), where it does not perch, but rather clings to 

 the sides with its sharp claws, partly supported by its sharper 

 tail. Audubon tells of a certain plane tree in Kentucky where 

 he counted over nine thousand of these swifts clinging to the 

 hollow trunk. 



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