Till- -\\ IIT 



ing tin* slaughter of thousands <>i tin- insect rn<v One bird picked 

 up was found to have sixteen parasites busy round its eyelids. 

 " They had eaten the lid and drawn blood from the eye. When the 

 bird was laid down he was continually flinching at his eyes with his 

 it TI When in flight swifts may be seen trying to get rid of their 

 tormentors in the same way. Their life, therefore, is not all joy. 

 Nature does not give them for nothing the glorious freedom of the air. 



The worst enemy of the swift tribe in this country is, however, 

 cold weather occurring after their arrival. Exhausted by a vain 

 search for food, many then fall to the ground and perish. 



Like the swallows, they hunt for their food chiefly in the air, 

 snapping to right and left, and apparently collect a number of insects 

 in the mouth before swallowing. Birds shot, whether when they have 

 young to feed or not, may be found with the mouth full of insects as 

 much as a teaspoonful - attached to the sticky saliva with which it is 

 abundantly provided. Swifts also take their food from the surface of 

 water. I have seen one, when flying over a river, suddenly {muse, and 

 \\ith wings upturned and motionless, its breast almost touching the 

 water, pick something from the surface, and then pass on. Bailly, 

 who alone appears to have recorded the fact, states that at early dawn 

 swifts may also be seen flying over the ground, picking from the blades 

 of grass or the leaves of bushes the drowsy insects that lie waiting for 

 the vivifying rays of the sun to give them energy to wing their way 

 to the upper air, where once more they meet the swift,* 



Like the swallows, again, the swift is a summer visitor to this 

 country, but, stragglers apart, it reaches us about a month later and 

 departs more than a month earlier. It arrives in flocks, and the 

 pairs appear to proceed almost at once to their breeding-place. As 

 the migration is spread over several days, one place may receive its 

 birds at a much earlier date than another, and this occurs when the 

 colonies are close together. For instance, in Devonshire the migrants 



Field, 1885, bcv. 782. 



1 A. II. Patterson, Notts of an Eaat Coatt Naturalist, p. 108. 



1 Omithologif de la Saroie, i. 291. 



VOL. II. 2Z 



