160 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



This is one of those incidents in natural history that not 

 only baffles our searches, but almost eludes our guesses ! 



These hirundines never perch on trees or roofs, and so 

 never congregate with their congeners. They are fearless 

 while haunting their nesting places, and are not to be scared 

 with a gun ; and are often beaten down with poles and 

 cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are 

 much infested with those pests to the genus called hippo- 

 boscae hirundinis ; and often wriggle and scratch themselves, 

 in their flight, to get rid of that clinging annoyance. 



Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh scream- 

 ing note ; yet there are ears to which it is not displeasing, 

 from an agreeable association of ideas, since that note never 

 occurs but in the most lovely summer weather. 



They never settle on the ground but through accident ; 

 and when down can hardly rise, on account of the short- 

 ness of their legs and the length of their wings : neither can 

 they walk, but only crawl ; but they have a strong grasp 

 with their feet, by which they cling to walls. Their bodies 

 being flat they can enter a very narrow crevice ; and where 

 they cannot pass on their bellies they will turn up edgewise. 



The particular formation of the foot discriminates the 

 swift from all British hirundines ; and indeed from all other 

 known birds, the hirundo melba, or great white-bellied swift 

 of Gibraltar, excepted ; for it is so disposed as to carry 

 "omnes quatuor digitos anticos" all its four toes forward; 

 besides the least toe, which should be the back-toe, consists 

 of one bone alone, and the other three only of two apiece. 

 A construction most rare and peculiar, but nicely adapted 

 to the purposes in which their feet are employed. This, 

 and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and under 

 mandible, have induced a discerning naturalist x to suppose 

 that this species might constitute a genus per se. 



In London a party of swifts frequents the Tower, 

 playing and feeding over the river just below the bridge : 

 others haunt some of the churches of the Borough next 

 the fields ; but do not venture, like the house-martin, into 

 the close crowded part of the town. 



1 John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D. 



