220 NATURAL HISTORY 
their feet are employed. This, and some peculi- 
arities attending the nostrils and under mandible, 
have induced a discerning naturalist* to suppose 
that this species might constitute a genus per se. 
In London, a party of swifts frequents the Tow- 
er, playing and feeding over the river just below 
the Bridge ; others haunt some of the churches of 
the Borough next the fields, but do not venture, like 
the house-martin, into the close, crowded part of 
the town. : 
The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent 
name on this swallow, calling it ring-swala, from 
the perpetual rings or circles that it takes round 
the scene of its nidification. 
Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles with 
hard cases over their wings, as well as on the softer 
insects; but it does not appear how they can pro- 
cure gravel to grind their food, as swallows do, 
since they never settle on the ground. Young 
ones, overrun with hippobosce, are sometimes found, 
under their nests, fallen to the ground, the number 
of vermin rendering their abode insupportable any 
longer. They frequent in this village several ab- 
ject cottages; yet a succession still haunts the 
same unlikely roofs: a good proof this that the 
same birds return to the same spots. As they must 
stoop very low to get up under these humble eaves, 
cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on the 
wing. 
On the fifth of July, 1775, I again untiled part 
of a roof over the nest of a swift. ‘The dam sat 
in the nest; but so strongly was she affected by 
natural oropy7 for her brood, which she supposed 
* John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D. 
