CYPSELUS. 211 



having only one bone. Although the tail is long and deeply 

 forked, and has only ten strong shafted, tapering feathers 

 (while the swallows have twelve), it is much exceeded in length 

 by the long, narrow, and pointed wings — all which account for 

 their great speed and marvellous power of flight, calculated at 

 the rate of 250 miles an hour — the swiftest of all birds. It is 

 computed that hawks and falcons fly at the rate of 150 miles, 

 eagles 140, and swallows about 100 miles an hour. The heavy 

 eider duck can fly 90 miles, and even the lazy, flapping rook 

 can fly 25 miles an hour; but, according to Spallanzi, the 

 common black swift outflies them all, hence it is well entitled 

 to the name of swift, for, as Shakespeare says — 



" True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings." 

 Also that 



" Experience is by industry achieved, 

 And perfected by the swift course of time." 



For, as the messenger says in " Henry VI." — 



" One would have ling'ring wars with little cost, 

 Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings." 



Also, in " Kichard III."— 



" If you will live, lament ; if die, be brief, 

 That our stvift-tving'd souls may catch the King's." 



And, in " As you like it," he pictures the wounded stag — 



"Standing on the extremest verge of the swift brook, 

 Augmenting it with tears." 



Or, as Patrick Hamilton is made to say in a local tragedy of 

 that name, when depicting the picturesque German town of 

 Marburg, whence he first fled from persecution — 



" Pure is the air : the sioifts that flash and wheel 

 Shriek oer the golden scene for ecstasy." 



A true picture, for swifts actually shriek for joy in their 

 amorous flight. There are only two species known in Britain 

 — the alpine swift (cypselus alpinus), and the common, or black 

 swift (cypselus murarius) ; but as the first is seldom seen in 

 Britain, and never about St Andrews, I need not describe it. 



