236 HIRUNDINID.E. 



in tlie nest, arc but little attended to afterwards, and in some 

 instances the wliole family leave the country together as soon 

 as the young are able to sustain themselves firmly on the 

 wing. Unless some accident happens to the first eggs, the 

 Swift produces but one set in the season. " I have just met 

 with a circumstance respecting Swifts," says Gilbert White, 

 " which furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my 

 observations, ever since I have bestowed any attention on 

 that species of Hirundines. Our Swifts, in general, with- 

 drew this year (1781) about the first day of August, all 

 save one pair, which in two or three days was reduced to a 

 single bird. The perseverance of this individual made me 

 suspect that the strongest of motives, that of an attachment 

 to her young, could alone occasion so late a stay. I watched, 

 therefore, till the twenty-fourth of August, and then disco- 

 vered that under the eaves of the church, she attended upon 

 two young, which were fledged, and now put out their white 

 chins from a crevice. These remained till the twenty-seventh, 

 looking more alert every day, and seeming to long to be on 

 the wing. After this day, they were missing at once ; nor 

 could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round the 

 church, in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods evi- 

 dently do. On the thirty-first I caused the eaves to be 

 searched, but we found only two callow dead Swifts, on 

 which a second nest had been formed." Now, although the 

 maternal affection of the female bird, says Mr. Blackwall, in 

 the instance before us, w^as sufficiently powerful to induce her 

 to remain with her young till they were capable of accompa- 

 nying her in a distant journey, to a more genial climate, as is 

 sometimes the case with House Martins when deserted by 

 their mates ; yet the conduct of the male, if it docs not abso- 

 lutely establish the fact that Swifts occasionally abandon their 

 offspring to destruction, certainly affords strong presumptive 

 evidence in its favour. Mr. Salmon, in the tenth volume of 



