COMMOJf SWIFT. 345 



slumbering tendencies ? Suddenly, witli a screech that 

 makes one jump again, the swifts come dashing past the 

 upper windows, no sooner heard than gone, and circling 

 round the steej)le in their evening flight, repeat with 

 every passing swoop their strange alarm. 



This species appears, generally, about the first week 

 in May, and leaves us again, for the most part, by 

 the end of August, though stragglers are occasionally 

 seen up to the 20th and 25th September. The E.ev. 

 E. W. Dowell has, however, recorded in his MS. 

 notes, a single swift as seen by himself at Blakeney, 

 with several Hirundines, in October, 1858, a very un- 

 usually late appearance of this species. Through- 

 out their brief sojourn with us, they are very 

 generally distributed, frequenting alike the steeples of 

 our city and country churches, the eaves of houses, or 

 the ruined edifices of bygone days. They also breed 

 regularly in the dark crevices of the chalk-cliifs at 

 Hunstanton, facuig the sea, where their nests are free 

 from all chance of molestation ; but the old birds are, I 

 am sorry to say, frequently shot at from the beach as 

 they take their evening flight over the sands, or chase 

 one another along the face of the clifFs, whose hollows 

 reverberate with their harsh screams. A curious instance 

 of the effect of cold, during a very backward spring, upon 

 our British Hirundines, as observed at the residence of the 

 Rev. Mr. Fonnereau, of Christchurch, Ipswich, is quoted 

 by Messrs Sheppard and Whitear from the Suffolk 

 Chronicle (June 15th, 1816) : — ^^On the mornings of the 

 6th and 6th of June, 1816, the gardeners could have taken 

 up hundreds of these birds (swallows) in their hands. 

 They were collected in knots, and sat on the gi'ass in 

 parcels of thfrty and forty. This, there is reason to 

 believe, was owing both to cold and hunger." They 

 farther add, "The same summer many house-martins 

 were found dead on the gi'ound in Norfolk, and others 

 2 Y 



