
10 THE CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 
season. The first nest being built, the female lays usually 
four pure white eggs, which measure thirteen-sixteenths of 
an inch in length, by seven-sixteenths of an inch in breadth, 
and is assisted by the male in the process of incubation. A 
few days after the young appear, the male takes them in 
charge, while the female builds again, as she is seen in the 
last of June obtaining materials to build or to repair another 
nest, and thus we see young birds in the same chimney of a 
different size and age; it therefore requires all the energies 
of the parent birds to supply their offspring with a suffi- 
ciency of food, and claims their labor through the day and a 
greater part of the night. Some species of the family of 
finches conduct their family affairs in like manner. 
Mr. Audubon, in speaking of the habits of the song-spar- 
row, remarks: “among the many wonders unveiled to us by 
the study of nature, there is one which long known to me, is 
not the less a marvel at the present moment. I have never 
been able to conceive why a bird which produces more than 
one brood in a season, should abandon its first nest to con- 
struct a new one, as is the case of the present species ; while 
other birds, such as the osprey and various species of swal- 
lows, rear many broods in the flrst nest which they have 
made, which they return to after their long annual migra- 
tions, repair and render fit for the habitation of the young 
brood to be produced.” “There is another fact which ren- 
ders the question still more difficult to be solved. I have 
generally found the nests of these sparrows cleaner and more 
perfect after the brood raised in them have made their de- 
parture, than the nests of other vigi of bizdi mentioned 
above, are on such occasions, —a ¢ stance 
render it unnecessary for the SAVMBONENIA to Minis its 
nest." 

The first nest of the sparrow is oceupied by the first inecli 
and are tended by the male, while the female sparrow has 
built a second nest and is setting, and by the time the first 
brood is cast off by him, to care for themselves, he finds 


