lOO BIRDS OF THE PLAINS 



class with the swift as a flyer. When both birds are 

 in the hand nothing is easier than to tell a swift from 

 a swallow or a martin. The latter have the ordinary 

 passerine foot, which consists of three forwardly directed 

 toes and a backwardly directed one. This foot enables 

 a bird to perch, so that one frequently sees swallows 

 seated on telegraph wires. But one never sees a swift 

 on a perch, because all its four toes point forward. It 

 cannot even walk. It spends its life in the air. It eats 

 and drinks on the wing, it does everything, except 

 sleeping and incubating, in the air. 



But it is not often that one has a swallow or swift 

 in the hand ; it is difficult to get near enough to them 

 to put salt on the tail, so that it is necessary to have 

 some means of distinguishing them when sailing through 

 the air. There is a very marked difference in the manner 

 in which these birds use their wings. This is inimitably 

 described by Mr. E. H. Aitken : "As a swallow darts 

 along, its wings almost close against its sides at every 

 stroke, and it looks like a pair of scissors opening and 

 shutting. Now a swift never closes its wings in this 

 way. It whips the air rapidly with the points of them, 

 but they are always extended and evenly curved from 

 tip to tip like a bow, the slim body of the bird being the 

 arrow." As a swift speeds through the air it looks some- 

 thing like an anchor, with a short shaft and enormous 

 flukes. If this be borne in mind, it is scarcely possible 

 to mistake a swift for a swallow. Swifts are abundant in 

 Calcutta, but one is not likely to come across a swallow 

 there except when the moon happens to be blue. 



The two swifts commonly seen in Calcutta are the 



