192 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



but nicely adapted to the purposes in which their feet are employed. 

 This and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and under man- 

 dible, have induced a discerning * naturalist to suppose that this 

 species might constitute a genus per se. 



In London a party of swifts frequents the Tower, playing and 

 feeding over the river just below the bridge ; others haunt some of 

 the churches of the Borough, next the fields, but do not venture, 

 like the house-martin, into the close crowded part of the town. 



The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this 

 swallow, calling it " ring swala," from the perpetual rings or circles 

 that it takes round the scene of its nidification. 



Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles with hard cases over 

 their wings, as well as on the softer insects ; but it does not 

 appear how they can procure gravel to grind their food, as swallows 

 do, since they never settle on the ground. Young ones, over-run 

 with hippobosaz, are sometimes found, under their nests, fallen to 

 the ground ; the number of vermin rendering their abode in- 

 supportable any longer. They frequent in this village several 

 abject cottages ; yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely 

 roofs, a good proof this that the same birds return to the same 

 spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under these humble 

 eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch J;hem on the wing. 



On July 5th, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the nest 

 of a swift. The dam sat in the nest ; but so strongly was she 

 affected by natural oropy*/ for her brood, which she supposed to 

 be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she would not stir, 

 but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to be taken in hand. 

 The squab young we brought down and placed on the grass-plot, 

 where they tumbled about, and were as helpless as a new-born 

 child. While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy 

 disproportioned abdomina, and their heads, too heavy for their 

 necks to support, we could not but wonder when we reflected that 

 these shiftless beings in a little more than a fortnight would be 

 able to dash through the air almost with the inconceivable swift- 

 ness of a meteor ; and perhaps in their emigration must traverse 



* John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D. 



