. 
The Chimney Swift. 
Worthington, Ohio, July n .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: On April 15, of this year, the 
little boy of the family came rushing into the 
house during the morning and exclaimed: “The 
chimney swifts have come!” Immediately the 
entire family, grandpa and grandma included, 
repaired to the yard to watch the wonderful 
aerial gymnastics of these welcome summer resi¬ 
dents. They occupy each year three chimneys 
on our old house (built, by the way, in 1817 or 
1818, and, so rumor goes, Salmon P. Chase car¬ 
ried the hod for its erection), and we are always 
delighted to welcome once more the knights of 
the tireless wings to their ancestral castles. 
For years these birds have been a constant 
theme of conversation and a source of interest¬ 
ing study. There are hundreds of them, and just 
before their retiring time their corkscrew-like 
gyrations are the wonder and the admiration of 
all who see them. They depart suddenly in Sep¬ 
tember, escaping before the first onslaughts of 
the coming frosts, and so sudden and so silent 
is their departure that we have never seen them 
go. Each morning, just before daylight, they 
rise from the chimney’s throat, apparently in a 
well regulated procession, and the noise of their 
wings is like muffled thunder. As soon as they 
are free from the house they begin to circle 
about the chimney and then scatter to feed in 
flight all day long. During the period of rear¬ 
ing the young—the birdlings hatching somewhere 
about the 15th of June—the old birds can be 
seen darting in at all hours of the day, their 
“cheeks” puffed out by the hosts of insects that 
the parent birds have caught a-wing. 
Then there is a clamor and a cheeping in the 
black cavern of the chimney, as the parent bird 
hurtles down the abyss, and checking its down¬ 
ward rush alights lightly on the side of the nest, 
and by regurgitation passes the catch to the de¬ 
lighted little chaps, all hungry as bears. The 
old birds never make a mistake in the gloom, 
nor do the different pairs collide or interfere in 
their dartings to and from the chimney. In¬ 
deed, the chimney swifts seem to dwell together 
in perfect peace and harmony and to have the 
military system of drill and discipline marvell¬ 
ously well developed. 
Just how the little ones get to the broad top 
of the chimney is a debated question in our 
family. All ground birds of course have a 
chance to develop their wings by fluttering, while 
they are also developing their leg muscles by 
hopping or walking. The birds who are born 
in the trees exercise on the parent branch until 
they have gained sufficient courage to use their 
newly developed wings as parachutes. They 
also have the advantage of sight; that is, they 
can see the parent birds give the lessons of wing 
motion, and can profit thereby. But the little 
chimney swifts, born in semi-darkness, deep 
down in the throat of a blackened chimney, have 
none of these “sight” lessons of flight. How 
then do they make the fifteen or less feet from 
the nest to the top of the chimney, and reach¬ 
ing there when do they perfect themselves in 
the lesson of flight of which the parent birds 
are past masters? 
The chimney swift seldom rests, is constantly 
a-wing from morn to night, and is the best air 
general in birddom. Therefore, the little fellows 
must sometime learn the art. When do they do 
it? After a close observation for ten years the 
writer is still in the dark on many of the points 
of these first lessons. Fie has never seen the first 
flight of the swift, and right now, when the little 
ones are large enough to leave the nest, rone 
can be seen on the coping of the chimney, and 
none of the little chaps have ever been fonnd 
on the lawn below. It is certain that they are 
taught to fly, but when is the task done? A 
plausible theory of the rising of the young bird 
from the chimney is that they use their highly 
developed claws and their wire-like tail feathers 
as aids in climbing to the top, and that the 
parent, or parents, help from below. A bj’d 
of the build of the chimney swift could climb 
up, but when do the lessons of flight begin? 
That is a question the whole family is endeavor¬ 
ing to solve this summer. 
The chimney swift is easily distinguished in 
air from the rest of the tribe by its long wings, 
short body, the quick, nervous vibrations of its 
wings, and by its wonderful ability to wheel and 
dart in its pursuit of the winged creatures that 
form its food. At rest in the chimney, the swift 
clings to the rough sides by holding on with 
strong claws, and by using the stiff feathers of 
the tail as a brace. These feathers, like those 
of the woodpeckers, are strong enough to sup¬ 
port the bird with safety and comfort. 
The nest is affixed to the chimney like a 
bracket, is built of twigs, and is cemented to¬ 
gether by a saliva that is like glue. The eggs 
are white, sharp pointed and generally four in 
number. There are two broods raised a season, 
so that the members of the first must necessarily 
have quick preliminary flight lessons and be able 
to get out and shift for themselves before the 
second incubation starts. 
But it is in the perfect aerial drills that the 
chimney swift excels. There are leaders whose 
word is law and whose commands must be ex¬ 
plicitly obeyed, else there would be fatal col¬ 
lisions in mid air and serious misunderstandings 
on the annual migration. To show how per¬ 
fect is the command of the leaders it is but 
necessary to give this one instance. We were 
sitting on the lawn one evening last week. t 
was so dark that the bats were insect hunting, 
and nearly all the swifts had gone to bed. Two 
old birds seemed loth to retire. They would 
hover over one of the chimneys as if calling 
the roll, then dart away out of sight and return 
to hover again, then covering the country north, 
south, east and west for a long distance. It 
grew darker and darker and finally instead of 
two birds in air there were three. One bird 
out of the hundreds that occupy the chimneys 
had gone astray and the roll call was not com¬ 
plete. This straggler was rounded up, driven 
a few swift spirals in the air, and then hustled 
down to bed. The last bird hovered a moment, 
and then with an all present-and-accounted-for 
chirp, he dropped to his nest. 
Just as soon as the young are able to fly, and 
especially at evening time, the work of develop¬ 
ing the wing muscles is carried on unceasingly 
by the old birds. The officers take their places and 
the young are “herded” in the center of the 
swirling throng. Movements to the right and 
to the left are made with the precision of a 
well drilled troop of cavalry. As the young 
become more expert there are sudden swoops 
and rises added, and finally the lesson of taking 
the chimney in full flight is essayed. This is the 
hardest lesson the little fellows have to learn. 
They are going so fast; the hole in the chimney 
looks so dark and “creepy,” and the air outside 
is so warm and full of bugs that they hate to 
take the plunge. It is then that the parents, and 
maybe—in extreme cases of fright—the squad 
leaders, shoot to the side of the timid one, and 
as the pair swoops over the homestead, show 
the birdling how to “back up” a moment; how 
to get the peculiar flutter that poises the bird 
directly over the center of the yawning chasm, 
pick out the roosting spot, and then drop flutter¬ 
ing down. Then after the poorer flyers are 
eliminated come the real dare devils of the 
colony to show what they can do in the matter 
of aerial gymnastics. Their twists and dives 
are made like a flash, and all the time as the 
afterglow reddens the sky they twitter as they 
swerve and dart, increasing the pace until the eye 
can scarcely follow. By ones, by twos and by 
squads they drop down to their lodging places 
until only the leaders are left and the nightly 
roundup begins. Then as the moon peeps out 
and smiles majestically down, the chief leader, 
with a farewell round of the outposts, sinks to 
rest, and only the sleepy complaint of some swift, 
who thinks he is crowded in bed, comes from 
the dark cavern. The chimney swift colony is 
asleep. Will C. Parsons. 
Peary’s Caribou. 
In the summer of 1902 Commander Peary, the 
Arctic explorer, secured in Ellesmere Land 
specimens of a new caribou, which when turned 
over to the American Museum of Natural His¬ 
tory were described by Dr. J. A. Allen under the 
name Rangifer pearyi. In 1905 a large series 
of specimens were obtained, sixty-seven skins 
and fifty-three skulls, and from this great amount 
of material Dr. Allen has prepared an extended 
and fully illustrated paper which is printed in 
the Bulletin of the American Museum of 
Natural History now in course of publication. 
Peary’s caribou is a very distinct and beauti¬ 
ful species, and its nearly pure white color and 
small size distinguish it strikingly from all other 
known species of caribou. I he males of this 
species are no larger than the females of the 
Greenland and the Arctic caribou, and the color 
of the smaller species is sometimes almost as 
pure white as the Arctic fox or the Arctic hare. 
It is true that the middle of the back in most 
