BY THE WAY BIDE 
93 
t 
SCHOOL. BRANCH DEPARTMENT 
Every Wisconsin School Branch is required to subscribe for at least one copy of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters to this department should be 
written on only one side of the page, should 
five name, age and address of the writer and 
should be mailed by the first of the month; 
[llinois writers sending to Miss Mary Drum- 
tiond, Spring Lane, Lake Forest, Ill., and 
Wisconsin writers to Mr. Roland E. Kremers, 
Vladison, Wis. To each writer whose letter 
s published will be sent a beautiful colored 
jicture of the bird of the month. For the 
jest letter each month we will send ‘Winter 
5 icnics” by Ruth Marshall. Preference will 
>c given to letters about the bird study 
or the month and to original observations. 
The wren button which is the badge of the 
Vudubon Society, costs two cents and can be 
jought from Miss Mary Drummond, or Mr. 
Cremers. 
Any Wisconsin society may, by paying 
he express, have the use of the Gordon and 
VLrrill Libraries of bird books by applying 
o Mr. Kremers. 
A set of colored bird slides with a type¬ 
written lecture may be rented from Roland 
2. Kremers, 1720 Vilas Street, Madison, 
Wis. Illinois Schools may use, without ex- 
jense, a library or a lecture with lantern 
slides, by applying to Miss Bunnel, Academy 
>f Sciences, Chicago. 
The Chimney Swift 
» Have you ever noticed those little birds 
i hat are usually flying over the house- 
| ops towards sun-down ? Perhaps you 
I lave called them swallows. But swal- 
jl ows they are not. They are the little 
| diimney-swifts and are related to the 
lighthawk and the ruby-throated hum- 
fning bird. 
O 
| The chimney-swif't is rather a queer 
ittle bird. As it flies along one would 
hink that it had no tail, but when it turns 
(quickly, it spreads its tail and then one 
I ‘an sometimes see the points on the ends 
pf the feathers, spines they are called. 
Ml day long it flies through the air, hunt- 
mg little flies and other insects. At 
; light, it does not go to roost like the 
pther little birds. Years ago, before the 
vhite man lived here, it used to sleep in 
hollow trees, but now, if you should 
watch these little creatures a little after 
sunset, you would see one hover over a 
ch’mney, then lift its wings nearly 
straight up over its back and fall with a 
little twitter into a chimney. Here it 
stays all night, clinging to the side ot 
the chimney, with its weak little feet 
and bracing itself securely with its tail. 
Illinois Prize Letter 
Shumway, Ill., April 21, 1911. 
Dear Wayside:— 
This is the first year that our class 
has made a special study of birds. 
We certainly find it very interesting in 
watching the little birds as they come 
back, and to see how happy they are as 
they begin to build their nest. Last 
spring as the birds were coming back 
again two birds, called barn swallows, 
flew around the barn. On the east side 
there was a door which was open and the 
birds saw it and finally they took courage 
enough to go into it. I watched them 
and every day they went to and fro, 
picking sticks and straw, then going to 
the pond which was close by and some¬ 
how carrying mud to- the nest and then 
fixing it to the rafter. After it was al¬ 
most finished I saw the birds carrying 
feathers to the nest, which they put in 
the middle. 
A few weeks after there were six eggs 
in it. They were white with grayish 
specks on them. Two weeks later I 
saw that the nest was full of little birds. 
They were of a gray color but after 
a while they became large enough to fly 
and their color changed. Their backs 
and heads became a kind of a bluish 
