of ti)e 



By AUBREY EDWARDS. 



S a field naturalist in a small way I wish to bring 

 to the notice of the Members of this Natural 

 History Field Club the wonderful night- 

 soaring habit of the swifts. 



I will take it that my fellow-members are 

 well acquainted with this bird Cypselus apus 

 of the family Cypsdidae of the order Picariae, 

 except as to its habit of roosting in the sky, 

 which was first discovered by my brother, Cyril Edwards 

 (now Rector of Mottisfont, in Hampshire), and myself in 

 1886, and published by me in a letter to Nature of October 

 27, 1887. 



My excuse for bringing this matter before you is that, 

 though it has been published as just mentioned in 1887 and 

 later in the Selborne Society's Magazine in 1890, January 

 May, and by Mr. Wichell in Knowledge, June 1, 1897, and 

 often noticed in short paragraphs in The Field, and again by 

 myself in a lecture to the Bournemouth Natural Science 

 Society in December, 1912, very few people have heard of it, 

 and fewer still believe it. And it is not everyone who has 

 the opportunity of observing it. In a Field Club like this 

 I feel sure there will be some who can and will investigate 



