I So 'NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



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, ex- 

 cepted ; 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 ami under man- 

 dible, have induced a discerning* naturalist 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. 



The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this swal- 

 low, calling it " ring swala," from the perpetual rings or circles that 

 it takes round the scene of its nidification. 



Swifts feed on coleoptera, 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 

 hippoboscce, 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 5th 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 o-ropyr) 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 dispropor- 



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



