SWIFT. 273 



Family CYPSELIDAE. Swifts. 

 Swift. Microptis apus (Linn.). 



Our Swift (Plate 1 10) breeds in Europe and north-west Africa 

 and winters in southern Africa; allied races occur in Asia. It 

 is a late spring visitor to most parts of the British Isles, rare in 

 the north of Scotland and the Scottish isles, where it is a 

 passage migrant. 



April is well advanced before the first Swifts announce their 

 arrival by loud screams as they wheel high overhead or rush at 

 marvellous speed through the air. The bird seen at Lowestoft 

 by Prof. Newton on March 26 was exceptionally early. The 

 black bird, with long, narrow, scimitar-shaped wings, needs no 

 description, yet it is necessary to emphasise that it is not a 

 Swallow, though through sharing aerial habits it has acquired 

 similar form and appearance. It is a master of the art of 

 flight, our most aerial species, and never seems to tire. The 

 ordinary flight is an alternation of rapid wing-beats and long 

 glides with outspread motionless wings, during which it loses 

 no elevation. It races through the air. 



"Like a rushing comet sable 

 Swings the wide-winged screaming swift." 



It is eminently sociable ; little parties delight to career, scream- 

 ing, between the houses in our streets, or to wheel and soar 

 high in the upper air. Except when it ascends for play, for 

 play it certainly does, the altitude of flight is regulated by the 

 height at which insects are flying, and in this way has relation 

 to weather. As some insects fly in rain the Swift feeds during 

 storms, and the " Devil-bird " has a reputation for bringing bad 

 weather. On late May and June evenings the Swifts, or at any 

 rate those which are not engaged in incubation, indulge in 

 combined crepuscular flights. At dusk they mount high in the air, 

 . Series I. X 



