How To Have Bird Neighbors

IV
THE BLUEBIRDS’ BUNGALOW

I love the springtime because it brings my birds back from their winter homes.

One cold March day I saw something blue flash across the sky.

“Can that be the bluebird I have been waiting for?” I thought.

It flew into a tree; then alighted on a clothesline post. I could plainly see the blue on its back and the red on its front. Yes, it was the bluebird. His song was as beautiful as his plumage, but in a minor tone:

“De-_ary! De-_ary!”

Next he flew to the top of the wren house, tripped along the roof, leaned over and looked at the little porches. Then he went down on one of them and looked into the room. That was as far as he could go. The entrances to these apartments had been made for the tiny wrens and not for bluebirds. When he saw the bluebird house in the tree, he flew to a branch just in front of it and looked at it a while. Then he flew back to the wren house and tried that again; he liked it so well, he couldn’t bear to give it up.

After a week or so another bird came, of much paler hue, but with the reddish breast. The song of my bluebird now became long and pleading: “Deary! dear, dear, deary!” But it still remained subdued and minor. Together he and his newly arrived companion visited the bird houses, so I concluded that they were mates. They could hardly make up their minds which house to take, so pleased were they with all of them. Mrs. Bluebird tried the wren house, too. But when she saw she could not get inside she did not go there any more.

My prettiest bluebird house was on our hammock post, well shaded by our biggest tree. I had read somewhere that bluebirds like to have one house for spring and another for summer. So this house was made with two rooms, one above the other. I thought the bluebirds would surely like this double house better than the single one, for they went inside it many times, and always stayed there long.

The other house, which was mounted on a young maple, was not nearly so pretty. It was made out of cigar boxes and I had forgotten to take off the labels. After the bluebirds had visited it I did not dare touch it because, if their houses are interfered with, birds are liable to go away. Both the maple and the hammock post were well protected with tin sheeting.

One day Mrs. Bluebird fetched some grasses in her bill. To my great joy she alighted on the perch in front of the double house. Twice she poised to fly, but did not. At last she flew—and where do you think she went? Why, to that ugly little house with the labels on it!

While she was in the house, Mr. Bluebird alighted on the porch, looked in, and sang a little song. Mrs. Bluebird flew out past him and almost brushed him off. Then he went inside, and just as Mrs. Bluebird returned with some more grasses he came out with a chip in his bill. Some chips had fallen inside when I made the entrance, and he did not like that. The little house must be clean, since Mrs. Bluebird was going to make her nest in it. Sometimes he brought a grass or two; she brought whole wads of grasses. But he made up in attentions to her. Wherever she might be working, he perched near by, on a fence post or a low branch, and kept his eyes on her. As she went from place to place to find the right kind of grasses, or to the little house to throw them in, he always followed her. Sometimes she was just gliding through the entrance with a load as he alighted on the housetop with a choice morsel for her to eat.

One day our neighbor’s cat was hiding behind an evergreen near where Mrs. Bluebird was hunting grasses. Mr. Bluebird’s bright eyes saw her just in time.

“Dear-dear-dear!” he cried, quickly and jerkily.

Mrs. Bluebird knew that that meant, “Danger! Fly quick!!” Up she flew, and away.

The cat jumped high and almost caught her.

After that I chased the cat away every time I saw her. There certainly should be a law to make people keep their cats at home.

When Mrs. Bluebird had her house all furnished she stayed at home about two weeks and took a good rest. Mr. Bluebird continued to bring her meals and to entertain her. When he was not hunting bugs and worms, or chasing English sparrows, he was sure to be somewhere near home, singing his sweetest songs.

When Mrs. Bluebird was able to be out again she and Mr. Bluebird were busier than ever. Both were carrying food to the little house. I knew then that they had babies in there, so I called him Father, and her Mother.

The bluebirds caught some of their food in the air, but a good deal of it they picked up in my garden. I had some low stakes there expressly for them. They perched on these and on the bean-poles, and from there pounced on many a luckless worm or bug that their sharp eyes espied. I am sure the bluebirds are great helpers in a garden.

After two busy weeks of baby-tending, Father and Mother Bluebird did just what the little wrens had done. They made the babies come outside for their food, or go hungry.

I think the first little bird to leave a nest must be very courageous. The others usually follow close after him. It was so with these bluebirds. And as they came out, one after another, Mother coaxed them over to the thornapple bushes. She did it by calling, “Dear dear,” and flying back and forth between the little house and the bushes.

Some of the baby bluebirds were quite obedient and flew after the mother. Two liked it so well on a branch in front of their house that they stayed there a while; then flew to other branches in the same tree. Father looked after these, and Mother stayed with the other three. What a chatter they always made when food was brought to them! It seemed as if each one said: “Come to me! Come to me!”

While Father and Mother Bluebird had those babies to feed and to care for, they started another housekeeping. This time they moved into the pretty double house and took the lower story. In the second coming-out party there were four more little bluebirds.

All through this second housekeeping the English sparrows tried repeatedly to get into the upper story, and Father Bluebird had to spend much time chasing them away. In the one-story house he had that much more time to get food, or to sing.

I did not clean the bungalow house after their first nesting, because I did not want the bluebirds to nest in it again. After the double house was vacated, I cleaned both houses, and found that the bluebirds had used only grasses and a few feathers for their nesting. In each case they had covered the entire floor with grasses, but the cup-like nest was back against the rear wall, as far from the entrance as it could possibly be.

What could this mean but that the bluebird likes a house with depth so she can bed her young as far back from meddling paws as possible? This much I learned from examining the deserted bluebird nests.

V
THE WRENS’ APARTMENT HOUSE

A four-room house which had been sent to me was very much liked by a pair of wrens. Again their lively, rippling notes filled the air, as these wrens went from room to room of this “apartment house,” as I called it. It was three days before they made up their minds which room they liked best.

Then they brought little twigs and bits of rag, and leaves, and other things, and poked them into one of the rooms. It was as good as saying, “We will take this apartment for the summer.”

Some English sparrows wanted that same room. We always shooed them away, of course, if we could without frightening the other birds. The wrens jabbered and hissed at the sparrows, and stayed, pecking them and being pecked by them. There were four sparrows and only the two wrens; so the poor little wrens finally gave up and went away.

But, try as they would, the sparrows could not get inside of the house. After a while, they, too, went away. Then the wrens returned. It seemed as if they had been watching for the chance.

The wrens soon fetched more twigs, some of them several inches long. They poked them in as far as they would go; then went inside and pulled them in as well as they could. But some of the longest ones remained partly outside and so blocked the entrance to any birds except the tiny wrens.

Again the English sparrows came and, although they couldn’t even get their heads in now, still they bothered the wrens. They couldn’t have that room themselves, and they didn’t want anybody else to have it.

With such a mean spirit is it any wonder that nobody likes these birds? I cannot bear to call them sparrows any more, because so many good birds go by that name, and are therefore in danger of being disliked. Or, I wish that all the good sparrows could have a different name, and let the English sparrow alone keep the name he has dishonored.

The boy has told me that, to keep English sparrows from increasing around his place, he destroys their eggs wherever he can find them. He said that one pair of sparrows seemed to blame the bluebirds for it, and in revenge destroyed the bluebirds’ nest.

We kept up the shooing and handclapping whenever English sparrows visited the wren house. After a while the wrens began to understand that we were trying to help them, and went on with their nesting. They put tiny sticks and twigs into other rooms of their house also,—and now there was a perfect concert of wren music all the time. Before night two more entrances were blocked. Some of the twigs that these wrens brought had such long thorns on them that they would not go inside at all. But this did not discourage the plucky wrens. They just dropped them to the ground and fetched others.

The next day another pair of wrens came. It seemed as if wrens had a way of letting their friends know where some nice apartments could be had. I was so eager to accommodate as many wrens as would come that I had made some one-room houses for them. One was mounted in a pear tree; another under the overhang of the garage roof.

This last wren pair seemed quite bewildered with so many houses to choose from, and all of them different. Whenever Mrs. Wren showed preference for one house, Mr. Wren would go to another one and with his singing try to coax her there. She was seen oftener about the house under the garage roof, than the others. Mr. Wren seemed to like the apartment house best. He was such a jolly little fellow, it is no wonder he liked to have company. But Mrs. Wren did not care for that at all. A small cottage was her choice. After making us believe that she liked the one under the garage roof, she came with a stick about three inches long and flitted about with it.

Mr. Wren had already put some nesting material into the apartment house. But hard as he tried, by singing and by soft chatter, which I suppose was coaxing, and by frequent visits to the apartment house, he could not win her over. Her mind was made up, and it must be—what? Well, it was the small house in the pear tree. When Mr. Wren saw that he couldn’t have his way, why, of course, that small house became his choice too.

Each of these pairs of wrens raised some babies. But with all their work and family cares, and the English sparrows to bother them at times, they were always a happy company. They could sing just as beautifully when carrying twigs or worms or bugs as at any other time. Their happy music made a continuous open-air concert. And their manners, whether at work or at play, were so entertaining that I could not bear to take my eyes off them.

This went on through late April and part of May. One morning the wrens were all excited. Two of their little ones were on the ground. Our kitty had been tethered to a hitching weight; but now, fearing one of the little wrens might fly near her, I locked her up. The parents were coaxing their little birds over toward the vacant lot where the thornapple bushes are. These bushes start even with the ground and are so dense, and have such long, sharp needles, that a cat would get her eyes scratched out if she tried to go in. I shall always plant thornapple bushes wherever I may live, especially for the protection of young birds. And I shall plant several close together, so as to make a dense thicket. These bushes will provide food for birds, as well as protection.

The way these wrens coaxed their little ones to follow was very clever. They would go near them; then walk away trailing their wings. This made a soft, rustling, coaxing sound. But it was over an hour before they succeeded in getting the little ones where they wanted them. They had to come back to them again and again and keep up the coaxing. I was glad when they finally had them safe under those thorny branches, where I could not see them any more for the leaves.

By this time two more young were ready to leave the house. One was already on the little porch, the other peered out of the entrance. These were wiser than the first two. Instead of going to the ground, one flew to the kitchen roof which was near and almost even with the wren house. It was a flat roof covered with gravel. Pretty soon the second baby also flew to the roof.

It must indeed be a wonderful event in the life of a bird when first he steps out of the crowded little home and looks around him at the big outdoors. Then what courage it must take to venture on his wings! He has fluttered them a few times over the nest, of course, but that is not to be compared with just bouncing out into the air and trusting to his wings to bear him up.

The two stayed on the kitchen roof all the rest of the day. I put a potted plant out there for them to perch on. In the morning one of the baby wrens perched for a little while on a window sill, but Father Wren coaxed him back to the roof. I put several more plants out on the roof in order that the fledglings might exercise their wings and strengthen them for the long flight they would have to make to the nearest tree. After a while they did fly from plant to plant. In this way they spent the rest of the day and they liked it so well that they stayed another day, and perhaps longer.

I was absent from home a few days. On my return the apartment house was empty of baby birds; so also was the small house in the pear tree. The wrens were pulling out the feathers and grasses of the first nestings, and getting ready to nest again. One pair had already begun nesting in an unoccupied apartment. Can anyone imagine the hustle and bustle of those busy wrens, cleaning house and nesting at the same time, and the joy with which they did it?

The one-room house in the pear tree was so made that the front could be raised after turning a small screw-eye on the side. This made cleaning it easy.

Now, aside from furnishing their rooms all over again, these wrens had their babies to care for. But they seemed the happier the more work they had to do. They were just bubbling over with happiness all the time; and they made everyone about them happy, too.

I should think everybody would put out wren houses and get these jolly little fellows to live near them. Wrens are not particular whether they live on a porch, in a city yard, or on a farm. They are just as happy in one place as another, as long as they have a safe little home; and they will rid a place of bugs and flies and other unpleasant things.

So cheery was that summer with those wrens around me, that I hope always to have them as my neighbors.

VI
THE BOY

One day in early April I was in the ravine getting hepaticas. Before I knew it I was near the boy’s house again. His mother called to me from her garden.

“The boy is at home now,” she said; “maybe you would like to see him at work.”

I thanked her, and went with her to the little shop. There beside his work bench stood a boy about twelve or thirteen years old. He was painting the wren house a dark green. The bluebird house was finished, ready to put up.

I told him I had put up my bird houses long ago, and that the bluebirds had been house hunting for some weeks. He said that there were so many English sparrows around his place that he feared they would nest in his houses if he put them out early. But he had just learned of a way to keep the sparrows from nesting in bluebird houses. He said his manual training teacher had advised him to mount his houses for wrens and bluebirds only about eight feet from the ground, since the English sparrows seldom nest lower than ten feet from the ground, and will not be likely to take a house that is lower.

The boy put up the bluebird house while I was there, on a young maple that afforded plenty of shade. His bluebirds were house hunting too, and visited the house right away.

I told him about the tin sheeting to keep cats and squirrels down. He said he had been using tangle-foot, the sticky stuff that is sometimes put on trees to keep bugs down. But he said that cats and squirrels didn’t mind climbing over it, and he was going to try the tin.

I fear that the boy was not wise in delaying so long to put up his bird houses. When I saw him again, in mid-April, he said that one pair of bluebirds had nested in a house that he had intended for chickadees; that another pair were in an old hollow tree; and that a pair of wrens were visiting the new bluebird house.

Two of his other houses were for woodpeckers, and a beautiful new one for purple martins already had some tenants.

“It is two years now that the first martin house has been up, and yet I have never had any martins to stay!” said the boy. “They would come, go into the house and twitter, and then fly away.”

He began talking again about his manual training teacher: how she called one day, and told him that the martin house was mounted too low, and too near trees; that martins want to be fifty feet away from a tree or building, and sixteen feet up from the ground; also, that it pleases martins to have openings near the ceiling of their rooms so they can have a change of air.

I remarked that this ventilation would make their rooms more comfortable.

“Yes,” said the boy; “and this new martin house is made according to teacher’s directions.”

As we stood there, martins were flying about, twittering, singing, perching on the telephone wires near by and on the roof and the porches of their house. The pole had hinges so that the house could be brought down and cleaned, when necessary, or closed.

One lovely June day found me again at the boy’s home. I remarked the large number of young robins on the lawn.

“The young have just left their nests in that tree,” answered the boy, pointing into a big cherry tree. “Robins have nested in that tree every year since I can remember.”

I guessed that perhaps the cherries were the attraction.

“Well,” he said, “we think birds earn all the cherries they eat; we never pick those on the top branches at all, but leave them for the birds.”

During that visit the boy showed me several bird homes. First he apologized for doing it. “Every bird home is a secret between mother and me,” he said; then added, “but I know I can trust you.”

One of these little homes belonged to bluebirds. The others belonged to the flicker, the wood thrush, and the killdeer.

We walked slowly and talked low, as we went from one place to another. Loud talk and running frighten birds. And to go very near to a bird nest is harmful because, every time the mother is frightened away, the eggs or young are liable to get chilled if the weather is cool. If hot, and the nest is exposed to the sun, the eggs or young are liable to get overheated.

The boy told me of a marsh hawk’s nest which a gentleman came to photograph. He said that this gentleman brought a lad along to hold his hat over the young to shield them from the sun, during the mother’s absence. The two were there only about ten minutes. But evidently that boy told other boys; for soon the nest was being visited at all times of day. At every visit, the mother flew away, and in a few days all the young were dead.

I remarked that photographing nests should be done with the greatest care; that if any screening foliage was pushed aside, it should be replaced, and the nest left just as the mother bird had planned it. It is indeed fortunate that bird photography is so difficult that only few people attempt it. Exposing a nest to the camera is very apt to result in disaster unless it is done by one who has the highest interests of birds at heart.

The flickers had their home in a stump of a tree. The entrance was so low I had to stoop in order to look in; but the nest was down deep, out of sight. Whenever Father or Mother Flicker came with food they called softly, “Ye quit! ye quit!” Then the babies could be heard making a hissing sound. Sometimes when the parents were gone longer than usual, a baby flicker could be seen taking a peep at the outside world.

One day during the previous spring while walking along the ravine I had seen three of these large brown birds, and had learned their name from hearing them sing, “Flicka flicka flicka.” It is easy to get acquainted with birds who are named after their song. One of these birds on that spring day was constantly spreading his wings and his tail before the others, as if he wanted to show the beautiful yellow feathers underneath. Because of these yellow feathers the flicker is also called golden-winged woodpecker. Nearly all birds have a scolding word. When the flicker wants to scold he says, “Queer,” as plainly as a person can say it.

Of course, we never went near enough to any bird’s nest to frighten the brooding birds, nor did we stay long enough to keep the parents from feeding their young. We always found a convenient place fifty feet or more away, and through our field glasses watched the birds without annoying them.

I had long known the wood thrush by his yodeling song. It usually came out of the thickets and tangles in the ravine back of our place, so the singer could not easily be seen. At sunrise and sunset, the music of the thrushes, singing and answering one another, was like bells calling to prayer. From early May until mid-July I always wanted to be out mornings and evenings to attend the matins and the vespers of the wood thrushes.

Mrs. Wood Thrush tried hard to hide her nest; it was completely surrounded by thornbushes. “Wit-a-wit-a-wit,” said her mate as we went near; then he came out of his hiding place. He had a brown back and a white and brown speckled front just like Mrs. Wood Thrush, who sat serene on her nest all this time. She was trusting in something to protect her fully; whether it was her brave companion, or those bushes bristling with thorns that surrounded her nest, I do not know. Maybe she thought we didn’t see her at all. We pretended not to see her.

Always, when I find a nest, I turn away and try to keep the birds from knowing they have been discovered. I look out of the corners of my eyes, and go away humming a tune. After a while I return and walk near by, again singing the same tune. I do this as many times as I can during a day or two. Before long the birds seem to know that the person who comes singing that tune has never harmed them. They remain quiet when I am near, and this affords opportunity to observe them more closely.

Some bluejays were flitting about. Bluejays are everywhere, and at all times of the year. The bluejay is that big blue and white bird with handsome crest. In early spring he sings some pleasing notes, but in autumn and winter he is just noisy. Now he was very still. I could just see Mrs. Bluejay’s head between two branches of a poplar tree. She had a nest there, for there were tell-tale twigs hanging over on both sides. Mr. Bluejay did not want anybody to find her, nor the nest. This was why he kept so still.

The boy had scattered some peanuts on a bald spot in the yard. I asked why he did this during the summer time.

“It keeps the chickadees and woodpeckers coming here all summer,” said he.

As we sat there a bluejay came for a peanut and went under a tree with it. There he punched a hole in the ground with his bill and poked in the nut. Then he went to a currant bush and got a leaf. Returning to the spot where he had buried the peanut, he patted the leaf neatly over it.

A brown and white bird about as big as a robin flew overhead singing, “Killdeer killdeer” as loud and as fast as he could.

“There goes a killdeer,” said the boy.

So the killdeer is another bird that is named after his song! How easy it would be to know birds if all were named after their song, like the chickadees and the killdeers and the flickers, or after their colors, like the bluebirds, or after their actions, like the woodpeckers!

The boy’s father had found a killdeer’s nest in a potato field when he was plowing. We went to see that, too. It was in a patch of ground overgrown with weeds because the man had kindly plowed around it. Mother Killdeer sat dutifully on the nest while Father Killdeer guarded the premises and told us by his various shrieks and somersaults that he wished we would not go near enough to disturb her.

On the farm that day I saw the golden-throated meadowlark. He is another yodeler. His favorite tune is:

“Le-_o- ^lee-o-_loo”

His songs ring so clear and flute-like that I can hear him away over at our place. He is a brown bob-tailed bird. Over a beautiful yellow front he has a black band, pointing down in the middle, V-shaped. A large company of these birds were in the meadow, happy as larks; so they are well named meadowlarks.

But think of a dear little bird and such a sweet singer as the song sparrow, bearing the same name as the odious English sparrow! It seems unjust, and in this the boy agreed with me. We got to talking about the song sparrow because one was on a fence post near by, singing over and over this lively ditty:

“Twee twee twee^/twe-e\twe-e\_\jeje^jejejeje_jeje^je jay.”

The bluebirds’ home that the boy had mentioned at the beginning of my visit was in a hole of an apple tree. By standing on tiptoe I could look in and see four light-blue eggs lying on a nest of grasses that looked like a cunning little basket. It was a hot day, too hot for Mother Bluebird to stay in that hollow tree all the time. She was out playing tag with Mr. Bluebird. Perhaps she thought the hot air would keep her eggs warm. After she went in again he visited her often with food. Before going after more he usually perched on a little knob just above the entrance and sang. Sometimes she came out on the ledge to listen. It was a winsome sight to see the bluebirds in their primitive home.

This was the bluebirds’ second nesting on the farm. Their first one had been destroyed by the English sparrows. The boy said he had tried in every way to help the bluebirds, and that, whenever he saw any sparrows near, he gave a sharp whistle—his confidential whistle, he called it—and that Mrs. Bluebird got so she understood what it meant; that as soon as she heard it she would come up on the ledge and call, “Dear, dear-dear.” Immediately Mr. Bluebird would appear and drive the intruders away.

These bluebirds were also annoyed by a red squirrel who climbed the trees in the orchard and peered into the nest holes. Mr. Bluebird dashed for him whenever he saw him, especially if he found him near the home tree. Sometimes both the bluebirds chased the red squirrel, who would run off barking like a little dog.

The boy had seen how I put out strings and cotton and chicken feathers, for the birds’ nestings, and he had fixed up a “store”—as he called it—on a tree, where they could “buy without money.” Every little while a goldfinch came and got some string. Always on coming he sang out, “Perchikatee,” as if to say, “By your leave.” Downy woodpeckers, chickadees, and nuthatches were there at this time of the year, although ordinarily they are seen only in winter and early spring.

The boy said it was the ravine, with its trees and thickets and tangles, that attracted so many birds. He was always praising that ravine. He thought so much of it that he had asked the neighbors not to throw rubbish down there, and not to disturb the underbrush, which shelters so many birds. He had also asked them please to keep their cats indoors at night, because so many birds had nests and helpless little ones on the ground, or in low bushes.

“Mother put me up to that,” he said; and added, “we are trying to keep that ravine as a sanctuary for birds, where they and their little ones can be safe.”

Another thing that attracted birds to that place was a mulberry tree. Though only two years old, it was bearing fruit and was visited by robins, orioles, thrashers, and redheaded woodpeckers.

The boy had so many kinds of birds never seen near our place that I began to wish I, too, could live on a farm and have so many more of these charming neighbors.

A storm came up. Soon the shallow places in a cornfield near by were turned into puddles. The baby martins that had been lounging on the porch went inside. The old ones came flying home in a hurry. We went to the garden house, which the boy had fitted up as a workshop because he didn’t like to deprive his mother any longer of her little storeroom. When it stopped raining the sun came out and the clean earth fairly glistened. A flock of robins came to hunt for worms in the drenched field. Some bathed in the puddles. It was amusing to watch them chase one away if he stayed in long.

As we were enjoying the robins, the boy’s mother called out: “Come here, you bird people, and see what has happened.” She took us to the living room and told us to listen at the chimney. A rasping twitter came from within.

“It must be those chimney swallows,” guessed the boy.

He stepped upon a chair and took off the chimney cap. There, scrambling around in soot, were some black looking birds.

“One, two, three, four,” he counted, as he reached in and handed them out on a newspaper.

Three were young birds, and one was an adult bird with long wings. Their nest was also there. The heavy rain had loosened it and made it fall.

The little ones screeched in chorus, and tried constantly to get hold of something with their claws. The older bird gave no sound at all. She seemed to be hurt. We called her the mother.

The lady looked at their little nest. Then she went and fetched a basket, and, as soon as the birds were removed to it, they began to clamber up the sides. When they got to the top, where they could hang at full length, they stopped their screeching. Only now and then they still gave a rasping sound. Perhaps they were hungry, and scolded because nobody brought them any food. Some crossed over the rim of the basket and tried the other side.

I stayed there the rest of the afternoon. Every ten or fifteen minutes the little birds gave a call, like, “Gitse gitse.” Thinking that they must be almost choked with the soot, I tried to give them water, but they would not open their bills. I forced them open with a manicure stick, and gave them a drop at a time. They swallowed it when it was dropped far down in their throats; otherwise they would jerk their heads and throw it out.

I also moistened a cracker with some egg yolk, and mixed into it about fifty flies out of the flytrap; then tried to feed the birds with the little stick. By prying up their upper mandible I got some flies down each bird’s throat. The lower mandible was very soft and would not bear handling.

I became so attached to these birds, I hated to leave them, but the time came for me to go home. The boy and his mother seemed distressed at the prospect of having birds as boarders. There was canning to do, besides cooking for extra farm hands; and Laddie had to help his father with the haying,—so his mother said.

I offered to take the birds and do the best I could with them, if the lad was willing. He was; so I took the birds and the nest with me in the little basket, which was their temporary home.

VII
THE CHIMNEY SWIFTS

The correct name of these birds whose home life was so rudely broken up is chimney swift. According to the bird books, they have been known to fly a thousand miles in a day, and they live in chimneys. Could any name fit them better? Chimney swifts are sometimes called swallows, probably because they resemble them somewhat, and twitter like swallows. But they are not swallows at all.

I thought if the birds could have their nest near them, it would seem more like home to them. It was a tiny nest, a bracket made of twigs which were woven together basket fashion and tightly glued. I have preserved it as an art treasure. On each side is a flat, gluey extension. Wetting this extension made it sticky; but it would not stick to the rough surface of the small basket. I laid it on the smooth surface inside a peach basket and put weights on it. When it became dry, the nest was stuck fast.

Then I transferred the swifts from the small basket, which had been their temporary home, to the peach basket. They perched around the nest. One of these babies was put to rest in the nest, but he did not stay there long. They all clambered up to the edge and from time to time they changed places, sometimes crossing over the edge of the basket from one side to the other.

It was fortunate that this happened during my vacation, because the care of a baby bird demands much time. He has to be fed regularly and often. Having several birds to feed is about enough to take up all one’s time.

If they only had opened their bills when they were hungry, it would have been much easier to feed these swifts. Their very short but wide bills had to be pried open every time and the food poked down their throats. I tried to feed them every fifteen or twenty minutes. It took so long to feed each one, that usually, by the time I had finished with number four, it was necessary to begin feeding number one again.

The food I gave them was bread soaked in warm milk, with plenty of flies mixed in. For a change I mixed the bread with a raw yolk. I gave them warm water occasionally. It seemed to me they needed it after having come through that mass of soot.

At the end of the first day the young were as chipper and bright as any young birds. Instead of screeching they began to twitter, “Gitse gitse.” The mother was very still. She did not seem to care for her babies at all, and did not go near to keep them warm. She just hung in the one position. Several times she tried to fly, but she could only fly a few feet; then she fell to the floor.

During the second day the young seemed to be doing well. They preened themselves, and their blackish breasts were changed to gray. It was a cool day, and I set the basket where the sun would shine on the birds. They fluffed their feathers as if they enjoyed the warmth. Once in a while one tried to fly, but he always fluttered to the ground and had to be brought back. The mother tried her wings again and again. She got so she could fly a little farther at every attempt, before she went to the ground. At about five o’clock she flew far enough to get out of sight.

All the next day I kept the peach basket with these swifts in it outdoors, hoping the mother would return and feed them. But she did not return.

On the following day these birds began to look feeble. I went to the telephone and called up a gentleman[1] who is an authority on birds, and asked him what I should do. He said the main thing was to keep the birds evenly warm; that more young birds die from chill than from hunger. To revive them he said I should put a few drops of whiskey in a glass of water and give them each a few drops; then I should try to get them some gnats, or a grub from the garden, mince it well, and feed it to them. Flies, he said, had not much nourishment in them.

On returning I found that two of the little birds had died. I determined to try hard to save the remaining one. It was impossible to get whiskey because I live in a temperance town. I gave the little bird a weak solution of baking soda because he had a big lump in his craw. Then I wrapped him in a silken scarf, and warmed him beside the cook stove as I have seen baby chicks revived when they have been chilled by a sudden rain. The lump disappeared. He brightened up. I could find no grubs; but a few grasshoppers, some ant larvæ, and several juicy green cabbage worms were food enough for the rest of that day. I kept the bird in his wrappings all day, but fixed it so he could clamber on to the basket. At night I put him away warm and snug, and seemingly happy. The first sound I heard the next morning was “Gitse gitse.”

The little bird was ready for a meal. From an ant hill near by I got more ant larvæ, something which all young birds like. For the first time now he swallowed food just as soon as it got inside his bill. Up to this time he had jerked it out unless it was poked down. But he still refused to open his bill.

He did not care for the nest and never would stay on it. So I fixed him again in the little basket where he would be more snug. I had lined it with cotton batting and woolen cloth so his breast would be against a soft, warm surface. I also kept him at an even temperature, and fed him regularly. The little basket was on my work table. He seemed to enjoy being near me and being talked to. Sometimes he flew over on my shoulder. I fed him more cabbage worms and grasshoppers, and also gave him water occasionally.

I could not forgive myself to think I hadn’t asked for advice sooner. I felt sure that, had I done so the first day I took charge of these birds, and then followed instructions, the two would not have died.

Again at the close of the day Baby Swift was put away in his warm wrappings. In the morning I did not hear the usual, “Gitse gitse.” Baby Swift had gone to the bird heaven.

It had been a big undertaking to adopt those homeless birds; but I am glad for several reasons that I did it.

First, I am glad that I helped them in their trouble.

Second, I am glad I relieved the boy and his busy mother of caring for them.

Third, I am glad because I have since read in the bird books that the chimney swift is a very useful bird; that he feeds wholly on troublesome insects.

Fourth, I am glad because it gave me opportunity to get acquainted with one more bird. I consider that something worth while.