1883-84-] Edinburgh Naturalists Field Cinb. i''^ 



J 



nests. Noticing this latter habit, idle boys at Eome manage to 

 capture these useful birds by a process at once surprisingly simple 

 and efficacious. They procure a silken line of sufficient length to 

 reach above the eaves of the houses. To one end of this they 

 attach a small curled feather or two, and behind these is formed 

 a running noose. This apparatus is taken up into the air by the 

 current of wind blowing along the street, and as the poor birds are 

 on the look-out for materials wherewith to line their nests, they 

 strike at the floating feathers and get their necks into the fatal snare, 

 when they are taken to the bird-market in the Eotunda for sale. 

 This ornithological amusement is often carried on in the street of the 

 Propaganda during the months of May and June, It seems to be 

 a great delight to Swifts on a summer's evening to collect together 

 and fly, with peculiarly harsh screams, round our churches, ruins, 

 and rocks. 



The Alpine Swift is, as I have before remarked, a very rare occa- 

 sional visitant to these islands. It is white underneath and brown 

 on the back. The figure which I exhibit (painted by my daughter) 

 gives a very good idea of this biixl, and you will observe from it that 

 the flight feathers of the wings, when closed, extend considerably 

 beyond the end of the tail ; and while in the common species the 

 expanse from point to point of the wings is seventeen inches, in the 

 Alpine S^vift it is fully twenty-six, giving the bird extraordinary 

 powers of flight. 



In former times it was a subject of much Avonder and conjecture 

 where our Swallows went in the winter ; and the fact of their con- 

 gregating in the autumn in the wiUow-beds on our rivers in such vast 

 numbers just previously to their disappearance altogether, probably 

 led to the idea that they retired under water, and there lay dormant 

 till the return of spring — a very strange notion certainly, and long 

 since exploded. "VVe now know as a certainty that vast numbers 

 winter in North Africa. They do not, however, reach the southern 

 part of that continent ; for my son, who was for some time in Natal 

 and the Transvaal, informs me that though he saw many species of 

 Hirundines there, not one was identical with those indigenous here. 

 It is strange and interesting to note, that whatever new country Ave 

 may visit, we find in its bird-life species very analogous to our own, 

 and yet entirely distinct. 



I met with rather a curious anecdote in an old book on animal 

 biography respecting migration, wdiich may not be uninteresting, 

 though for its truth I cannot vouch. It is said that a shoemaker in 

 Brazil tied a label to a Swallow with this inscription, " Pretty Swallow, 

 teU me whither goest thou in winter 1 " and that it or another 

 Swallow returned the next spring Avith a label on AAdiich was AATitten 

 in Greek characters, " To Antonio in Athens : why dost thou 

 inquire 1 " 



