196 SWIFTS. 



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 fo'od, 

 as swallows do, since they never settle on the ground. 

 Young ones, overrun with liippoboscce, are sometimes found, 

 under their nests, fallen to the ground, the number of vermin 

 rendering their abode insupportable any longer. They fre- 

 quent 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 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 o-ropyq 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, per- 

 mitting 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 dispropor- 

 tioned 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 

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

 must traverse vast continents and oceans as distant as the 

 equator. So soon does Nature advance small birds to their 

 f]\iKia, or state of perfection ; while the progressive growth 

 of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! 



* We hope that Mr. White restored these helpless birds to their nest, 

 and we suppose he did so, but it is not easy to see his object in either 

 removing them, or in seeing their feeble state on a grass-plot. ED. 



