Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/40

28 nest, the frightened bird perching far up the shaft, and the narrow line of sky above her; and there also was the small glass at the tip of my fishing rod, and in its oval face was an image of the inside of the shallow nest with two fat, featherless, sightless swifts flopping about in it. Nothing could now be easier than to watch the entire process of rearing the infant projectiles from a state of feebleness and imbecility to that marvelous condition of grace, speed, and intelligence at which they would, in the natural course of events, arrive in a few brief days.

My first desire was to ascertain how they were fed. The barn swallows, who by some freak have taken possession of a pewee's nest just under the eaves of my cottage, feed their young with insects which they bring bristling in their beaks. I had expected to see the swifts bring insects to their babies, but my closest scrutiny failed to discover anything in their beaks when they arrived, or when they went upon the nest. Under the new conditions I watched with double care and attention. At first, for nearly an hour, the birds were too much disturbed by the glass and fishing rod to settle upon the nest. They came close to it and chattered, but flew nervously and noisily, as though to frighten away the intruder. After a while they grew quieter, and finally one arrived with food. She came to the nest, mounted its edge, and leaned toward the open-mouthed young. Then she moved violently, and seemed to hang over the infants, to pound them, shake them, and push them back and forth in a singularly rough and unkind way. Seeing all these things by double reflection and in the dim light of the chimney, I could not be certain of details, but all that I saw reminded me of descriptions I had heard and read, of feeding young birds by regurgitation, while nothing that went on looked like the quiet and matter-of-fact process of dropping a fly into a little bird's gaping mouth. It seemed to me that the parent inserted her bill in the young one's throat, and then presumably pumped into it, by the violent motions which she made, a portion of the food previously swallowed by her. After being fed, the young dropped back limp or satisfied into the nest, and were promptly sat upon and hustled into a comfortable and orderly condition. Apparently both birds joined in feeding their offspring, for I saw first one and then the other go through this peculiar process.

Supposing that I should have ample opportunity for several days to watch the feeding, I did not devote myself to its study as faithfully as I should have, had I foreseen the distressing event which was in store for my tenants. On Saturday afternoon a light rain fell. The faithful mother sat upon her nest while multitudes of tiny drops floated down the chimney. They did not fall, but seemed to sail unwillingly through the gloom, held aloft