“‘The way of an eagle in the air! This is too wonderful for me!’ is an expression of this feeling of mystery, recorded in the book of Proverbs. One thing seems quite certain, however—if man ever succeeds in conquering the air and sailing through it, it will not be by the power of any invention of his own, but because he has at least in some degree mastered the knowledge of the flight of the bird and adapted it to his own use. “The Chimney Swift, that you all know as the Chimney Swallow, is one of the most abundant and best-known birds of the eastern part of the United States. With troops of fledglings, catching their winged prey as they go, and lodging by night in some tall chimney, the flocks drift slowly south, joining with other bands until, on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, they become an innumerable host. Then they disappear. Did they drop into the water and hibernate in the mud, as was believed of old, their obliteration could not be more complete. In the last week in March a joyful twittering far overhead announces their return to the Gulf coast, but the intervening five months is still the Swifts’ secret. [Illustration: THE WINGS IN FLIGHT (Birds of the San Joaquin Valley, Cal. Am. Museum Nat. Hist., N.Y.)] “The mouse-coloured Bank Swallows, that we saw here in flocks a few weeks ago, are almost cosmopolitan, and enliven even the shores of the Arctic Ocean with their graceful aerial evolutions. Those that nest in Labrador allow a scant two months for building a nest and raising a brood, and by the first of August are headed southward. Six weeks later they are swarming in the vicinity of Chesapeake Bay, and then they, too, pass out of the range of our knowledge. In April they appear in northern South America, moving north, but not a hint do they give of how they came there. The rest of the species, those that nest to the south or west, may be traced farther south, but they, too, fail to give any clew as to where they spend the five winter months. “Which one of the Wise Men can tell us? No one. Look out the window now; there are two Night Hawks, first flying high and then dropping suddenly through the air. Is it not hard to realize that, while you are going to and fro every day between your homes and school, and by and by having to dig paths through the snow in order to get there, those two slender birds will have flown 5000 miles to find a new summer, and will be having a vacation absolutely free from family cares?” ----- [1] Condensed and adapted from _Some New Facts about the Migration of Birds_, by Wells W. Cooke, United States Biological Survey. XII SOME SUSPICIOUS CHARACTERS _Owls and Hawks_