Mortality among Chimney Swifts

A (rowd of Hummers.--On May 1, 1920, Mter I ha( returned from a remarkable field trip, on which I had found 94 species of birds, one of my neighbors, Colonel B. F. Procter, called me to see the Ruby4hroated Hummingbirds about a red-flowered horse-chestnut on his lawn. There was a continuous going and coming of the hummers, twenty or more being in sight all the time. I saw several perched on the smaller twigs of the tree, in addition to the group buzzing about the fragrant blossoms. Though these tiny birds came every day for a week, I never again saw so many at one time. I feel sure that I saw on that one dy more individuals of ths species than I have ever seen in any other whole season. This bird is usually so rare that I keep a record of every individual seem--GoRDoN WILSON, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Plumage of the Chimney Swift.--Dr. Wetmore's interesting article on the wing claws of Chaetura pelagica, in the December 'Condor,' reminded me of another curious fact regarding this bird. In May, 1898, 1 put up a lot of skins of Chimney Swifts which had been suffocated in a chimney at Waukegan, Ill., and found concealed among the feathers of the abdomen at about the middle, a tuft of pure white down. This could only be noticed on parting the feathers, and was present in all of them but was lost or absorbed in making up the skins. Last Spring, while preparing a specimen (with the wings spread) my attention was called to a tract of naked black skin on the underside of the wing joint, and upon closer inspection, I found a single smoky black oval shaped feather growing from the center of the naked skin. Upon examining a 2umber of other specimens of Chaetura pelagica, and of C. vauxi from California and C. caudacuta from lew South Wales and Japan, the single feather was also found.--HENRY K. COiLE, Highland' Park, Ill. Mortality among Chimney Swifts.--In 'The.Auk' Vol. XXV, No. 3, pp. 317-318, July, 1908, under the heading "Curious fatality among Chimney Swifts," Mr. Ruthyen Deane has recorded that some 700 Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) entered a chimney in the house of Dr. Maxson, Waukegan, Ill., during a heavy rainstorm, while gases from a furnace fire were passing off through the chimney. More than 100 of these birds were killed, and the rest were released while yet alive by the occupants of the house. In another chimney of the same house no Swifts were found at that time. A destruction of Chimney Swifts in even greater numbers, at Truro, lova Scotia, under circumstances similar, yet different, is described in the following extract from a letter dated June 1,