THE TYPICAL SWIFTS. 4 1 



brown. Total length, 7 inches; culmen, 0*3; wing, 6"j ; 

 centre tail-feathers, 17 ; lateral ones, 2-9 ; tarsus, 0-35. 



Adult Female. — Similar to the male. Total length, 6' 6 inches; 

 wing, 6-4. 



Young. — Similar to the adults, but browner, the forehead 

 whiter, and the feathers having whitish edgings. 



Eange in Great Britain. — A common summer visitor to England 

 and Scotland, but rarer and of more irregular occurrence in the 

 north and west of the latter country. In Ireland, according 

 to Mr. R. J. Ussher, it breeds in every county, sometimes 

 nesting in cliffs. 



Range outside the British Islands. — The Swift is distributed in 

 summer over the greater part of Europe, and winters in South 

 Africa and Madagascar. It has been noticed as high as 70° N. 

 lat. in Norway, and has been found breeding at 69° N. lat. 

 Mr. Seebohm says that it is only an accidental visitor to the 

 neighbourhood of Archangel, and is not found higher than 

 lat. 60° N. in the Urals. He also records the species as breed- 

 ing regularly in Dauria, Mongolia, and North China, but the 

 Swift of these regions is doubtless the pale form called by 

 Swinhoe Cypselus pekinensis, a light-coloured eastern race of 

 our Common Swift, which ranges eastward from Sind to North 

 China, and winters to the southward, though it appears also 

 to visit South Africa on its migrations. Another light-coloured 

 form of M. apus is the Pallid Swift {M. /mmniis), which visits 

 Egypt and the Mediterranean countries in summer, and ex- 

 tends its eastern range as far as Sind, wintering in South 

 Africa. 



Habits. — The Swift is one of our latest arrivals in summer, 

 and one of the first of the migrants to leave our shores. It 

 comes towards the end of April or early in May, and departs 

 in August, though a few belated individuals are seen as late as 

 the end of September on our southern coasts, and even later 

 records of its stay have been established. Its approach north- 

 ward is very gradual, for whereas the first arrivals make their 

 appearance in the South of Europe in March, it is not till April 

 that they appear in Central Europe, and in the more northern 

 parts of their range, such as Lapland, they are not seen till 



