OF SELHORNE. 279 



Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh 

 screaming 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 acci- 

 dent; and when down can hardly rise, on account of 

 the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings : 

 neither can they walk, but only crawl; buf-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 the British Hirundines ; and indeed from 

 all other known birds, the Hirundo Melba, or great white- 

 bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted ; for it is so dis- 

 posed 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 8 to suppose that 

 this species might constitute a genus per se*. 



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



4 The genus suggested by Scopoli has been adopted by modern zoolo- 

 gists, and has been made to include all the species of swifts: but the 

 name which he gave to it has been superseded by that of Cypselus, ap- 

 plied to it by Illiger and adopted from Aristotle, which is considered as 

 indicating the habit of hiding their nests in holes. And not only has the 

 generic name been altered, but an attempt, and apparently a successful 

 one, in one instance at least, has been made to change the trivial appel- 

 lations also of the two European species ; the Hirundo Apns of Linnaeus 

 being the Cypselus murarius of M. Temminck, and the Hirundo Melba the 

 Cups. Alpinus of the author last quoted. Both these birds are now in- 

 cluded in the British list. E. T. B. 



Three examples of the great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar have 

 been killed in the British islands since the days of Gilbert White : one 



