. New England bird life; being a manual of New England ornithology: ed. from the manuscript of Winfrid A. Stearns . Birds. CHiETURA PELASGICA : CHIMNEY SWIFT. 57 cal walls of a chimney or hollow tree. In former times, before the country was settled, the birds roosted and builded in hollows of trees, to which they resorted in thousands sometimes — a steady stream of the creatures pouring in at dusk to pass the night. Some such trees have become historic as "swallow-trees," frequented year after year by countless numbers, till the bottom became filled with a mass of debris. Now
. New England bird life; being a manual of New England ornithology: ed. from the manuscript of Winfrid A. Stearns . Birds. CHiETURA PELASGICA : CHIMNEY SWIFT. 57 cal walls of a chimney or hollow tree. In former times, before the country was settled, the birds roosted and builded in hollows of trees, to which they resorted in thousands sometimes — a steady stream of the creatures pouring in at dusk to pass the night. Some such trees have become historic as "swallow-trees," frequented year after year by countless numbers, till the bottom became filled with a mass of debris. Now, like Swallows, they have modified their primitive way, and almost always choose to make their nests in chimneys, — whence their name, — though too often exposed in such situations to disaster by fire and flood ; as when a soaking rain loosens the mucilaginous fastening of the nest, and the whole comes tumbling down. The " frying-pan " out of which the little birds sometimes fall "into the fire," is one of the most curious of all speci- mens of bird architecture. It consists of a basket-work of bits of twigs, glued together and to the side of the chimney with the sticky saliva of the birds — the same substance that in other cases, as those of the species of the East Indian genus Collocalia, forms the famous " edible bird's-nests" used for making soup by the celes- tial heathens. The twigs are gathered in the most skil- ful manner by the birds, who dash past the ends of branches and snap off bits with the beak as quick as thought. The completed basket has a semicircular brim, and shallow cavity, in which are laid four or five pure white, narrowly elliptical eggs, about in length by. Fig. 6. — Chimnev Swift, with mucronate Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the
Size: 1835px × 1361px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1883
