SWIFTS. 209 



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, overrun 

 with hippoboscte, are sometimes found, under their 

 nests, fallen to the ground, the number of vermin 

 rendering their abode insupportable 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 some- 

 times catch them on the wing. 



On the 5th of July, 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 

 ffropyrj 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 incon- 

 ceivable swiftness of a meteor, and, perhaps, in their 

 emigration, must traverse vast continents and oceans 

 as distant as the equator. So soon does Nature ad- 

 vance small birds to their ri\ucia, or state of perfec- 

 tion ; while the progressive growth of men and large 

 quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! 



