Swift 



LETTER XXL 



To the same. 



SELBORNE, Sept. 2%(h, 1774. 



EAR SIR, As the swift or black martin is 

 the largest of the British hirundines, 1 so it is 

 undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remem- 

 ber but one instance of its appearing before 

 the last week in April ; and in some of our 

 late frosty, harsh springs, it has not been 

 seen till the beginning of May. This species 

 usually arrives in pairs. 



The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in archi-^ 

 tecture, making no crust, or shell, for its nest; but forming 

 it of dry grasses and feathers, very rudely and inartificially 

 put together. With all my attention to these birds, I have 

 never been able once to discover one in the act of collecting 



1 As I have already noted, the swift is now known to belong to an 

 entirely different group of birds from the swallows, being in reality much 

 more closely related to the tropical humming-birds. Its apparent re- 

 semblance to the swallow tribe is purely adaptive, and results only from 

 similarity of habits. Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace has worked up this question 

 admirably in his " Tropical Nature." ED. 



