THE CHIMNEY SWIFT
One
fall they gathered in this way and took refuge for the night in a large
chimney-stack in a city near me, and kept this course up for more than a month
and a half. Several times I went to
town to witness the spectacle, and a spectacle it was: ten thousand swifts, I
should think, filling the air above a whole square like a whirling swarm of
huge black bees, but saluting the ear with a multitudinous chippering, instead
of a humming. People gathered upon the sidewalks to see them. It was a rare
circus performance, free to all. After a great many feints and playful
approaches, the whirling ring of birds would suddenly grow denser above the
chimney; then a stream of them, as if drawn down by some power of suction,
would pour into the opening. For only a few seconds would this downward rush
continue; then, as if the spirit of frolic had again got the upper hand of
them, the ring would rise, and the chippering and circling go on. In a minute
or two the same manœuvre would be repeated, the chimney, as it were, taking its
swallows at intervals to prevent choking. It usually took a half-hour or more
for the birds all to disappear down its capacious throat. There was always an
air of timidity and irresolution about their approach to the chimney, just as
there always is about their approach to the dead tree-top from which they
procure their twigs for nest-building. Often did I see birds hesitate above the
opening and then pass on, apparently as though they had not struck it at just
the right angle.On one
occasion a solitary bird was left flying, and it took three or four trials
either to make up its mind or to catch the trick of the descent. On dark or
threatening or stormy days the birds would begin to assemble by mid-afternoon,
and by four or five o'clock were all in their lodgings.
One day
a swarm of honey-bees went into my chimney, and I mounted the stack to see into
which flue they had gone. As I craned my neck above the sooty vent, with the
bees humming about my ears, the first thing my eye rested upon in the black
interior was a pair of long white pearls upon a little shelf of twigs, the nest
of the chimney swallow, or swift,—honey, soot, and birds' eggs closely
associated. The bees, though in an unused flue, soon found the gas of
anthracite that hovered about the top of the chimney too much for them, and
they left. But the swifts are not repelled by smoke. They seem to have entirely
abandoned their former nesting-places in hollow trees and stumps, and to
frequent only chimneys. A tireless bird, never perching, all day upon the wing,
and probably capable of flying one thousand miles in twenty-four hours, they do
not even stop to gather materials for their nests, but snap off the small dry
twigs from the tree-tops as they fly by. Confine one of these swifts to a room
and it does not perch, but after flying till it becomes bewildered and
exhausted, it clings to the side of the wall till it dies. Once, on returning to my room
after several days' absence, I found one in which life seemed nearly extinct;
its feet grasped my finger as I removed it from the wall, but its eyes closed,
and it seemed about on the point of joining its companion, which lay dead upon
the floor. Tossing it into the air, however, seemed to awaken its wonderful
powers of flight, and away it went straight toward the clouds. On the wing the
chimney swift looks like an athlete stripped for the race. There is the least
appearance of quill and plumage of any of our birds, and, with all its speed
and marvelous evolutions, the effect of its flight is stiff and wiry. There
appears to be but one joint in the wing, and that next the body. This peculiar
inflexible motion of the wings, as if they were little sickles of sheet iron,
seems to be owing to the length and development of the primary quills and the
smallness of the secondary. The wing appears to hinge only at the wrist. The
barn swallow lines its rude masonry with feathers, but the swift begins life on
bare twigs, glued together by a glue of home manufacture as adhesive as
Spaulding's.
The big chimney of my cabin
"Slabsides" of course attracted the chimney swifts, and as it was not
used in summer, two pairs built their nests in it, and we had the muffled
thunder of their wings at all hours of the day and night.
One night, when one of the broods was nearly fledged, the nest that held them
fell down into the fireplace. Such a din of screeching and chattering as they instantly
set up! Neither my dog nor I could sleep. They yelled in chorus, stopping at
the end of every half-minute as if upon signal. Now they were all screeching at
the top of their voices, then a sudden, dead silence ensued. Then the din began
again, to terminate at the instant as before. If they had been long practicing
together, they could not have succeeded better. I never before heard the cry of
birds so accurately timed. After a while I got up and put them back up the
chimney, and stopped up the throat of the flue with newspapers. The next day
one of the parent birds, in bringing food to them, came down the chimney with
such force that it passed through the papers and brought up in the fireplace.
On capturing it I saw that its throat was distended with food as a chipmunk's
cheek with corn, or a boy's pocket with chestnuts. I opened its mandibles, when
it ejected a wad of insects as large as a bean. Most of them were much
macerated, but there were two house-flies yet alive and but little the worse for
their close confinement. They stretched themselves and walked about upon my
hand, enjoying a breath of fresh air once more. It was nearly
two hours before the swift again ventured into the chimney with food.
These birds do not perch,
nor alight upon buildings or the ground. They are apparently upon the wing all
day. They outride the storms. I have in my mind a cheering picture of three of
them I saw facing a heavy thunder-shower one afternoon. The wind was blowing a
gale, the clouds were rolling in black, portentous billows out of the west, the
peals of thunder were shaking the heavens, and the big drops were just
beginning to come down, when, on looking up, I saw three swifts high in air,
working their way slowly, straight into the teeth of the storm. They were not
hurried or disturbed; they held themselves firmly and steadily; indeed, they
were fairly at anchor in the air till the rage of the elements should have
subsided. I do not know that any other of our land birds outride the storms in
this way.
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 not so the swift. 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.
Though the swift is a stiff
flyer and apparently without joints in her wings, 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 festival or grand celebration; and, as if bent upon a final effort to
work off a part of their superabundant wing-power before settling down for the
night, they circle and circle high above the chimney-top, a great cloud of
them, drifting this way and that, all in high spirits and chippering as they
fly. Their numbers constantly increase as other members of the clan come
dashing in from all points of the compass. Swifts seem to materialize out of
empty air on all sides of the chippering, whirling ring, as an hour or more
this assembling of the clan and this flight festival go on. The birds must
gather in from whole counties, or from half a State. They have been on the wing
all day, and yet now they seem as tireless as the wind, and as if unable to
curb their powers.
