A discussion of the specific distinctness of the Whip-poor-will and
Nighthawk, following an address to Connecticut agriculturists some years
ago, led to my receipt, in July, 1900, of an invitation from a gentleman
who was present, to come and see a bird then nesting on his farm that he
believed combined the characters of both the Whip-poor-will and
Nighthawk; in short, was the bird to which both these names applied.
[Illustration: NIGHTHAWKS]
Here was an opportunity to secure a much-desired photograph, and armed
with the needed apparatus, as well as specimens of both the Nighthawk
and Whip-poor-will, I boarded an early train for Stevenson, Connecticut,
prepared to gain my point with bird as well as with man.
The latter accepted the specimens as incontrovertible facts, and
readjusted his views as to the status of the birds they represented, and
we may therefore at once turn our attention to the Nighthawk, who was
waiting so patiently on a bit of granite out in the hayfields. The sun
was setting when we reached the flat rock on which her eggs had been
laid and young hatched, and where she had last been seen; but a fragment
of egg-shell was the only evidence that the bare-looking spot had once
been a bird’s home. The grass had lately been mowed, and there was no
immediately surrounding cover in which the bird might have hidden. It is
eloquent testimony of the value of her protective colouring, therefore,
that we should almost have stepped on the bird, who had moved to a
near-by flat rock as we approached the place in which we had expected to
find her.
Far more convincing, however, was her faith in her own invisibility.
Even the presence of a dog did not tempt her to flight, and when the
camera was erected on its tripod within three feet of her body,
squatting so closely to its rocky background, her only movement was
occasioned by her rapid breathing.
There was other cause, however, besides the belief in her own
inconspicuousness to hold her to the rock: one little downy chick
nestled at her side, and with instinctive obedience was as motionless as
its parent.
So they sat while picture after picture was made from various points of
view, and still no movement, until the parent was lightly touched, when,
starting quickly, she spread her long wings and sailed out over the
fields. Perhaps she was startled, and deserted her young on the impulse
of sudden fear. But in a few seconds she recovered herself, and
circling, returned and spread herself out on the grass at my feet. Then
followed the evolutions common to so many birds but wonderful in all.
With surprising skill in mimicry, the bird fluttered painfully along,
ever just beyond my reach, until it had led me a hundred feet or more
from its young, and then, the feat evidently successful, it sailed away
again, to perch first on a fence and later on a limb in characteristic
(length-wise) Nighthawk attitude.
How are we to account for the development in so many birds of what is
now a common habit? Ducks, Snipe, Grouse, Doves, some ground-nesting
Sparrows and Warblers, and many other species also feign lameness, with
the object of drawing a supposed enemy from the vicinity of their nest
or young. Are we to believe that each individual who in this most
reasonable manner opposes strategy to force, does so intelligently? Or
are we to believe that the habit has been acquired through the agency of
natural selection, and is now purely instinctive? Probably neither
question can be answered until we know beyond question whether this
mimetic or deceptive power is inherited.—Frank M. Chapman, in
_Bird-Lore_.
* * * * *
“Now comes the _Chimney Swift_, universally called the Chimney Swallow;
with small, compact body, only a little larger than a Bank Swallow, and
long, strong wings, it dominates the air in which it lives and feeds,
and so little does it use its feet that it does not perch on them, but
brackets itself against post, wall, or chimney, Woodpecker fashion, the
sharp, pointed quills of its short tail acting as a brace.
“In colour the Chimney Swift is sooty gray, and as it darts about the
sky it looks like a winged spruce cone, the wings being held further
forward in flight than those of the average bird.
“Like their cousins the Nighthawks, they feed chiefly in early morning
and late afternoon, though in the nesting season this work continues all
day. In the old wild days, like many another bird, this Swift built its
basket nest of twigs and bird glue on the inside wall of hollow trees,
but when man came, hollow trees went, and so, with the happy
adaptability of Heart of Nature himself, the bird moved to the hollow
chimneys of man’s own invention, and so, unwittingly, descended from his
sky parlour and became the one real fireside bird that we have. And for
this companionship he is willing to brave the risk of being smoked out
and having sparks scorch his nest.
“Now that wide-mouthed stone chimneys are also disappearing, what
remains for this Swift? We do not know, unless he changes his home to
the open air and builds his bracket nests on outside walls.
“The Swift folds his wings and dives down the chimney to his nest
silently as a bird cleaves the water, but when he rises, a roar of
rapidly whirring wings marks the ascent, so that sometimes it annoys the
people in whose rooms the chimney opens. Last summer, in the old
orchard-house where Miss Wilde lives, we used to sit before the wide
fireplace and listen to the Swifts twittering and whirling in and out of
the chimney, and by looking up on a bright day their nests could be seen
plainly. Once in a while an accident would happen, and Goldilocks will
show you a beautiful bracket nest and five white eggs that became
loosened after a storm and fell out on to the hearth.”
“But now that there is a fire all the time and a coal stove at Swallow
Chimney, won’t the birds choke if they live there?” asked Sarah Barnes.
“Grandma says they can stand wood smoke, but that coal-gas ‘spixiates’
’em; ’cause we’ve never had any at our house since we’ve been burning
coal.”
“I believe that your grandmother is right,” said Gray Lady, “and for
this reason I have planned to have a new outside chimney for the cooking
stove, so that the real ‘Swallow Chimney’ may be only used for the wood
hearth fires, and so continue to be their home for as long as I live or
the birds wish to rent it.
[Illustration: R. H. Beebe, Photo. CHIMNEY SWIFT RESTING]