His feet are
so small that he cannot perch as other birds do, so when he rests he
clings to the side of the chimney and leans on his tail. Each tail
feather is tipped with a stiff, sharp point that keeps it from slipping.
How then do you suppose he gathers the twigs for his nest? Watch him
some day when he is flying rapidly about. You may see that he goes by a
dead tree, and as he passes he hovers for a second near the end of a
limb. Then it is that he snaps off with his bill a small, dry twig for
his home.
But how can he fasten a nest of twigs to the upright chimney wall? Well,
the chimney swift carries a gluepot with him. It is in his mouth, where
certain glands produce a sticky substance like mucilage. With this he
glues the little twigs together and fastens them to the bricks.
Sometimes a heavy rain will moisten this glue. Then the nest is loosened
from the chimney and, with the poor little birds in it, falls to the
fireplace. If you fasten it as high in the chimney above the fireplace
as you can, the parent birds may come down and feed their young.
The humming-bird is an upholsterer and decorator. He and his tiny wife
build the daintiest little nest it is possible to imagine. They use
plant-down or "thistle-down" and cover it all over with grayish or
greenish lichens, those flakes of "moss" we see growing on the bark of
trees.
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