FLIGHT OF BIRDS MEINEETZHAGEN. 371 



But swallows are most deceptive birds as regards their flight. 

 They are in reality neither strong nor rapid fliers, and personally 

 I do not attach too much reliance in the data of the Koubaix swallow. 

 I do not believe any swallow is capable of anything approaching that 

 speed unless assisted by a tail wind of 30 or 40 miles an hour, which, 

 as is well known, is a hateful condition to a traveling bird. 



The case of the Mosul swifts is interesting. The birds were 

 probably not on passage, but simply feeding. It is known that 

 swifts travel great distances in search of food and ascend great 

 altitudes. In the Middle Atlas of Morocco, in the Himalayas, in 

 Crete and Palestine, 4,000 or 5,000 feet and 50 miles or so in distance 

 seems nothing to these incomparable fliers. I have had splendid 

 opportunities of observing both the Alpine, common, and spine- 

 tailed (Chcetura) swifts, and it has been a great disappointment to 

 me that I have never been able to get a satisfactory estimate of their 

 rate of flight, as they never continue on an even course. On a small 

 island off the coast of Crete, I was recently given a good exhibition 

 of what an Alpine swift can do. I was watching some of these 

 birds feeding round cliffs in which several pairs of Eleonora's 

 falcon were about to breed. Now, this delightful falcon is no mean 

 flier, and as these swifts passed their cliff, the falcons would come 

 out against them like rockets. The swifts would accelerate, and 

 seemed to be out of sight before the falcons were well on their 

 way. So confident were the swifts in their superior speed, that 

 every time they circled round the island they never failed to " draw " 

 the falcons, and seemed to be playing with them. I may add that 

 these same falcons have little difficulty in overhauling and striking 

 a rock pigeon — itself no mean performer. I have also seen on rec- 

 ord the case of falcons and swifts somewhere in India, when the 

 former failed time after time to come up with his quarry. I un- 

 fortunately can not trace the reference. 



I hesitate to even guess at the speed to which a swift can attain 

 when the necessity arises, but the main point is that this, the fastest 

 of birds, can increase his " feeding " speed of, say, 70 miles per 

 hour to a velocity which must exceed 100 miles per hour. There is 

 little doubt that the speed of the golden plover in the table is an 

 accelerated speed. Pilots in Mesopotamia have told me that whereas 

 geese can not to any great extent accelerate, duck, when pressed, 

 could attain a speed of about 60 miles per hour. 



To conclude, I find that birds have two speeds — a normal rate 

 which is used for every-day purposes and also for migration, and 

 an accelerated speed which is used for protection or pursuit, and 

 which in some cases nearly doubles the rate of their normal speed. 

 Some of the heavier birds can probably only accelerate to a slight 



