THE COMMON SWIFT. 287 



part of its visit, and in this respect it is peculiar. As a 

 general rule, birds cease their song partially, if not entirely, 

 when their eggs are hatched. The new care of providing 

 for the wants of a brood occupies their time too much 

 to allow leisure for musical performance, so that with the 

 exception of their call notes, and their cries of alarm or 

 defiance, they are for a season mute. Few of our songsters, 

 indeed, except the Redbreast and Wren, resume their song 

 till the following spring ; but the Swift, who is virtually 

 without feet (as the name apus denotes), neither perches on 

 the ground in quest of food, nor on a tree for rest. An 

 early riser, and late in retiring to roost, he is always 

 on the wing. Thus, whether hunting on his own account, 

 or on behalf of his mate and nestlings, his employment 

 is unvaried, and the same amount of time is always at 

 his disposal for exercising his vocal powers. These are 

 not great ; he has no roundelay ; he neither warbles nor 

 carols ; he does not even twitter. His whole melody is a 

 scream, unmusical but most joyous ; a squeak would be a 

 better name, but that, instead of conveying a notion that 

 it results from pain, it is full of rollicking delight. Some 

 compare it to the noise made by the sharpening of a saw ; 

 to me it seems such an expression of pent-up joy as 

 little children would make if unexpectedly released from 

 school, furnished with wings, and flung up into the air for 

 a game of hide-and-seek among the clouds. Such soarings 

 aloft, such chasings round the pinnacles of the church- 

 tower and the gables of the farm houses, no wonder that 

 they cannot contain themselves for joy. Every day brings 

 its pic-nic or village feast, with no weariness or depression 

 on the morrow. 



The nest of the Swift is constructed of any scraps 

 that the bird may chance ,to find floating in the air, for it 

 literally never perches on the ground, where it could not 

 stand, and whence it could not rise. These are rudely 

 pressed together in any convenient aperture or moulding 



