CYPSELID.^— SWIFTS. 145 



'n i^SSi just after their first appearance, there occurred so remarkably cold a day 

 that they clustered together in masses like swarming bees. " A large cluster 

 [was] seen hanging to the water-spout of Harwich Church. Some boys were 

 able, with poles, to knock them down, and many were caught." Mr. Hope ob- 

 serves that " When they are seen flying over the mouth of Harwich Harbour the 

 approach of heavy weather is looked for." 



White-bellied Swift : Cvfiseliis melba. 



A rare and accidental straggler to Britain which has once, or per- 

 haps twice, been met with in Essex. 



Yarrell says (14. ii. 240) that the fourth British specimen he knew of (really 

 the sixth) " was picked up dead near Saffron Walden, in Essex, in July, 1838, as 

 communicated to me by Joseph Clarke, Esq." (also Macgillivray, Hist. British 

 Birds, iii. p. 613 & 38. 126). In the last edition. Prof. Newton states on Mr. 

 Clarke's authoritj^ (37. ii. 373) that it was picked up dead near Hinxton, which 

 is in Cambridgeshire, just beyond the Essex boundary. Another Essex record is 

 by Dr. Bree, who says that on June 8th, 1871, Col. Delme Radcliffe thrice saw 

 this bird on the wing near Colchester (29. June 17), but the specimen was not 

 obtained (38. 126). Frederick Holme, writing to Mr. E. H. Rodd (probably in 

 1S33) says (23. 5034) :— 



" The great White-bellied Swift (Cypselus alpmus) has been shot three or ftair 

 times in Ireland within a few years, and once in England, at Attleborough, in 

 Norfolk, in September, 183 1 ; I think, but am not sure, that a second instan.ee 

 has occurred near Romford, in Essex." 



Needle-tailed S\vift : Acanthyllis caudacuta. 



An exceedingly rare and accidental straggler, which has only been 

 met with twice in Britain, but which has nevertheless a perfectly 

 good claim to be considered a British bird, notwithstanding its rejec- 

 tion by Prof Newton (37. ii. 371), and the fact that it has not been 

 met with elsewhere in Europe. It would be almost impossible to 

 import such a bird alive. 



The first British specimen was shot near Colchester. It was recorded (23. 

 1493) by Ed. Newman in the Zoologist, after having been examined and identified 

 by Messrs. Yarrell, Ed. Doubleday, W. R. Fisher, and himself. Newman quotes 

 the following information, supplied to him by the late Mr. Thos. Catchpool of 

 Colchester, to whom the specimen belonged : 



" It was shot about 9 p.m. on the 8th of this month [July, 1846] by a farmer's 

 son, named Peter Coveney, in the parish of Great Horkesley, about four miles 

 from Colchester. He saw it first on the evening of the 6th. He tells me it occa- 

 sionally flew to a great height, [and] was principally engaged in hawking for flies 

 over a small wood and neighbouring trees. Being only wounded, it cried very 

 much as it fell, and when he took it up, clung so tightly to some clover — it was 

 in a clover-lay — as to draw some stalks from the ground." 



The specimen is now in the possession of Mr. Catchpool's son, Mr. Thos. K. 

 Catchpool, of Leicester.* 



* The second occurrence of this bird in Britain was in 1879, when Mr. G. B. Corbin (40. iv. 

 81) obtained one near Ringwood, Hants, on July 26th or 27th, after having for several days seen 

 it flying over the Avon in company with another. Dr. Bree refers to another possible British 



L 



