286 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
or cliffs are not to be found the Swift will make its 
nest in a hole in a tree. 
The Swift seems to have almost an unlimited 
power of flight, as it may be seen on the wing from 
early morning to late in the night, either hawking 
about for its insect food or indulging in noisy 
quarrels with others of its own species, generally 
high in the air, far above the Swallows and Martins, 
except in very wet weather, when it is driven from 
its happy hunting-grounds aloft to seek food nearer 
the earth; but even then it never alights on the 
ground, from which it has some trouble in rising, as 
the Swallow has been described as doing: on those 
occasions when it is driven near to the ground it 
sometimes makes an incautious dash at the artificial 
fly of the fly-fisher, and is said to give considerable 
play before it can be landed. The peculiar form of 
this bird, as well as its weight, would hardly lead 
one at first to suppose it possessed such power of 
flight: the wings, certainly, are very long and 
very much. arched, the first primary being 
the longest, from which they decrease rapidly in 
length; the secondaries are nearly equal in 
length, and the tertials very short in proportion to 
the size of the bird, more so, perhaps, than those of 
any other bird except the Gannet. The great power 
and velocity of flight of this bird, taken together with 
its weight, bears out, to a certain extent, the asser- 
tion of the Duke of Argyle that the heavier in pro- 
