248 The Natural History of Selborne 



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. 



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 co/eoptera, 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 food, as swallows do, 

 since they never settle on the ground. Young ones, overrun with 

 hippobosc*) 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 sometimes catch them on the wing. 



On the fth 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 a natural aropyri 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 dispro- 

 portioned 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 con- 

 tinents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does Nature 

 advance small birds to their ^Ai/ct'a or state of perfection ; while 

 the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and 

 tedious. I am, &c. 



