OF SELBORNE. 219 
These hirundines never perch on trees or roofs, 
and so never congregate with their congeners. 
They are fearless while haunting their nesting. 
places, and are not to be scared with a gun, and 
are often beaten down with poles and cudgels as 
they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are much 
infested with those pests to the genus, called hippo- 
bosce hirundines, and often wriggle and scratch 
themselves in their flight to get rid of that clinging 
annoyance. 
Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh, 
screaming note; yet there are ears to which it is 
not displeasing, from an agreeable association of 
ideas, since that note never occurs but in the most 
lovely summer weather. 
They never settle on the ground but through ac- 
cident, and when down can hardly rise, on account 
of the shortness of their legs and the length of 
their wings; neither can they walk, but only crawl ; 
but they have a strong grasp with their feet, by 
which they cling to walls. Their bodies being flat, 
they can enter a very narrow crevice; and where 
they cannot pass on their bellies, they will turn up 
edgewise. 
The particular formation of the foot discrimi. 
nates the swift from all the British hirundines, and, 
indeed, from all other known birds, the hirundo 
melba, or great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar ex- 
cepted; for it is so disposed as to carry “ omnes 
quatuor digitos anticos,” all its four toes forward ; 
besides, the least toe, which should be the back toe, 
consists of one bone alone, and the other three only 
of two apiece: a construction most rare and pecu- 
liar, but nicely adapted to the purposes in which 
