934 SWIFT 
almost wholly Black Swan of Australia, have a higher morphological 
rank. Excluding from consideration the little-known C. davidi, of 
the five or six} species of the Northern hemisphere four present the 
curious character, somewhat analogous to that found in certain 
CRANES (p. 111), of the penetration of the sternum by the 
TRACHEA nearly to the posterior end of the keel, whence it returns 
forward and upward again to revert and enter the lungs; but in 
the two larger of these species, when adult, the loop of the trachea 
between the walls of the keel takes a vertical direction, while in the 
two smaller the bend is horizontal, thus affording an easy mode of 
recognizing the respective species of each.2 Fossil remains of more 
than one species of Swan have been found. The most remarkable 
is C. falconeri, which was nearly a third larger than the Mute Swan, 
and was described from a Maltese cave by Prof. Parker (Zrans. Zool. 
Soc. vi. pp. 119-124, pl. 30). 
SWIFT,’ a bird so called from the extreme speed of its flight, 
which apparently exceeds that of any other British species, the 
Hirundo apus of Linnzeus and Cypselus apus or murarius of most 
modern ornithologists, who have at last learned that it has only 
an outward resemblance but no near affinity to the SWALLOW 
(p. 926) or its allies. Well known as a summer-visitor throughout 
the greater part of Europe, it is one of the latest to return from 
Africa, and its stay in the country of its birth is of the shortest, for 
1 The C. unwini doubtfully described by Mr. Hume (Jbis, 1871, pp. 412, 413) 
from India, though recognized by Dr. Stejneger (ut supra), seems to be only the 
immature of the Mute Swan. 
? The correct scientific nomenclature of the Swans is a matter that offers many 
difficulties, but they are of a kind far too technical to be discussed here. Dr. 
Stejneger, in his learned ‘‘ Outlines of a Monograph” of the group (ut supra), 
has employed much research on the subject, with the result (which can only be 
deemed unhappy) of upsetting nearly all other views hitherto existing, and pro- 
pounding some which few ornithologists outside of his adopted country are likely 
to accept. In the text, as above written, care has been taken to use names which 
will cause little if any misunderstanding, and this probably is all that can be 
done in the present state of confusion. 
’ The bird has many local names, of which perhaps DEviLIne and ScrEECH- 
OwL are the commonest. Black Manrtry, House-Martin and Marr.er are 
also used, the last especially in Heraldry. 
4 An attempt has been lately made to revive the generic name Jicropus con- 
ferred in 1810 by Meyer and Wolf (Zaschenbd. i. p. 280), ignorant that it was 
already used in Botany, and by the laudable practice of those days inadmissible, 
as Meyer himself apparently recognized when he, in 1815 (Vég. Ltv- und 
Esthiands, p. 143), substituted Brachypus for it ; but meanwhile Illiger had come 
in with his Cypselus, which Meyer in 1822, in the supplement to his former work 
(p. 255), accepted. Both Micropus and Brachypus have since been applied 
in several zoological and even ornithological groups; but the use of either is 
contrary to customary law. 
