eresting to know how long our chimney swifts saw the
open chimney-stacks of the early settlers beneath them before they
abandoned the hollow trees in the woods and entered the chimneys for
nesting and roosting purposes. Was the act an act of judgment, or
simply an unreasoning impulse, like so much else in the lives of the
wild creatures?

In the choice of nesting-material the swift shows no change of habit.
She still snips off the small dry twigs from the tree-tops and glues
them together, and to the side of the chimney, with her own glue. The
soot is a new obstacle in her way, that she does not yet seem to have
learned to overcome, as the rains often loosen it and cause her nest
to fall to the bottom. She has a pretty way of trying to frighten you
off when your head suddenly darkens the opening above her. At such
times she leaves the nest and clings to the side of the chimney near
it. Then, slowly raising her wings, she suddenly springs out from the
wall and back again, making as loud a drumming with them in the
passage as she is capable of. If this does not frighten you away, she
repeats it three or four times. If your face still hovers above her,
she remains quiet and watches you.

What a creature of the air this bird is, never touching the ground,
so far as I know, and never tasting earthly food! The swallow does
perch now and then and descend to the ground for nesting-material;
but the swift, I have reason to believe, even outrides the summer
storms, facing them on steady wing, high in air. The twigs for her
nest she gathers on the wing, sweeping along like children on a
"merry-go-round" who try to seize a ring, or to do some other feat, as
they pass a given point. If the swift misses the twig, or it fails to
yield to her the first time, she tries again and again, each time
making a wider circuit, as if to tame and train her steed a little
and bring him up more squarely to the mark next time.

The swift is a stiff flyer: there appear to be no joints in her wings;
she suggests something made of wires or of steel. Yet the air of
frolic and of superabundance of wing-power is more marked with her
than with any other of our birds. Her feeding and twig-gathering seem
like asides in a life of endless play. Several times both in spring
and fall I have seen swifts gather in immense numbers toward
nightfall, to take refuge in large unused chimney-stacks. On such
occasions they seem to be coming together for some aerial fe