SWALLOW-TIME 



SWALLOW-TIME 



NATURALISTS note with satisfaction when swifts arrive 

 in great force, and it seems that they in- 

 The crease in numbers as certainly as swallows 



Abundant diminish. In many an old village every 

 Swifts glance skywards becomes focussed on the 

 swifts' sooty forms as the never-resting 

 voyagers circle above the housetops. The way the 

 swifts of a village arrive in a compact body suggests that 

 they have kept together since last summer. It is pleasant 

 to hear their wild screams in the twilight of May 

 evenings; but, welcome as they are, they cannot make 

 up for the loss of the swallows. 



THE swifts' habits suggest that they are wholly wrapped 

 up in their own affairs, and that these are 

 The of the utmost urgency, owing to their being 



Exclusive able to stay with us for little longer than 

 Swifts twelve weeks. They hold themselves in a 

 marked way aloof from man and other 

 animals, including most birds, and there is a certain 

 admirable fearlessness in their conduct. When accepting 

 the low eaves of thatched cottages for nest-sites, they 

 pay no attention to the cottagers or their children, and 

 scarcely deign to notice the cat which eagerly lies in 

 wait for their fleet forms as they flash to the nests. 



A CLOSE observer of a wheeling swift may note a re- 

 markable feature of the flight, how the long, 

 A Secret scythe-shaped wings work independently 

 of Flight of one another, so that in a photograph 

 one wing might be shown depressed and 



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