SWIFT. 225 
place. They fly until the dusk of the evening, and have been 
noticed until after nine o’clock. In the morning again they 
are betimes on the wing. 
They never seem to weary, nor do their wings once flag. 
They are indeed marvellously endowed in this respect, as when, 
says Bewick, they ‘are seen in flocks describing an endless 
series of circles upon circles; sometimes in close ranks, pur- 
suing the direction of a street, and sometimes wheeling round 
a large edifice, all screaming together; they often glide along 
without stirring their wings, and on a sudden they move 
them with frequent and quickly-repeated strokes.’ They are 
gregarious birds, joining in small troops of from half-a-dozen 
to a score. 
The food of the Swift consists entirely of insects of various 
kinds. Bishop Stanley relates, speaking of the quantity of 
insects destroyed by Swallows, that from the mouth of a 
Swift which had been shot, a table-spoonful were extracted. 
The indigestible part of the food is cast up in pellets. 
The note is a harsh scream. Mr. Selby remarks upon the 
theory of White of Selborne respecting the note, that it is 
fanciful, and so it is; but the one he has suggested in lieu 
of it—that it is the consequence ‘of irritability excited by the 
highly electrical state of the atmosphere at some times,’ is 
certainly still more so; for it is uttered in the most opposite 
kinds of weather: I look upon it as a simple exclamation of 
enjoyment, ‘particularly induced,’ says Mr. Macgillivray, ‘by 
fine weather and an abundance of food.’ 
The nest is generally placed in holes about steeples of 
churches, and the old walls of lofty towers, as also under the 
eaves of cottages and barns, crevices under window-sills, and 
even in hollow trees; under the arches of bridges, in the sides 
of cliffs, and of chalk-pits. It is roughly formed of straws, 
wool, grasses, hair, feathers, and such like materials aggluti- 
nated together, picked up with great dexterity while the bird 
is on the wing, or purloined, as some say, from, or found in 
the nests of Sparrows, which they appropriate to themselves. 
It may be that no nest, or next to none is formed, unless 
the remains of a Sparrow’s nest are used. With the Martins, 
however, the case is exactly opposite: ‘thou art the robber,’ 
they might say or sing to the Sparrow. 
The ordinary number of the eggs is for the most part two, 
but sometimes three; and J. J. Briggs, Esq. has, in one instance, 
at Melbourne, in Derbyshire, known four. Speaking of the 
