288 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
county.” From a Society professing to call, itself a 
“Natural History Society” we might have hoped 
for some fuller accounts of the “ five specimens in 
Ornithology” than that they were “neatly mounted 
with appropriate landscape back-grounds.” Of a 
bird so rare as the Alpine Swift we should have cer- 
tainly liked to know, at least, the when and where of 
its capture. However, as it was shot in the county, 
I must include it in the list of Somertshire birds. 
Though rare, this bird has been taken in several 
counties in Great Britain and Ireland; its general 
habitation seems to be the islands in and countries 
adjoining the Mediterranean. It is a migratory 
species, going northward across that sea from Africa 
to Europe in summer. It appears to have much the 
same habits as the Common Swift, feeding on 
various sorts of insects, which it seeks far in the 
higher regions of the air. 
The nest is placed in the fissures of high rocks, 
and in the loftiest parts of cathedral and church- 
towers: it is made of straw and moss.* 
This bird may readily be distinguished from the 
Common Swift by its white belly and its larger size. 
Yarrell describes the Alpine Swift as follows:— 
“The beak is black, and longer in proportion than 
in the Common Swift; the irides are blackish brown ; 
the top of the head, sides of the neck and all the 
* Yarrell, vol. 11., p. 278. 
