EVENING GATHERING OF SWIFTS 191 



after which they would mount up and return to the 

 church, to repeat the same race over the same course 

 again and again. They continued their pastime for an 

 hour or longer, after which the flock began to diminish, 

 and in a short time had quite melted away. 



On the following evening I was absent, but some 

 friends staying at the village watched for me, and they 

 reported that the birds appeared after seven o'clock 

 and played about the place for an hour or two, then 

 vanished as before. 



On the afternoon of the 18th I went with my friends 

 to the ground behind the churchyard, from which a 

 view of the sky all round can be obtained. Four or 

 five swifts were visible quietly flying about the sky, all 

 wide apart. At six o'clock a little bunch of half-a-dozen 

 swifts formed, and began to chase each other in the 

 usual way, and more birds, singly, and in twos and 

 threes, began to arrive. Some of these were seen 

 coming to the spot from the direction of Alton. 

 Gradually the bunch grew until it was a big crowd 

 numbering seventy to eighty birds, and as it grew the 

 excitement of the birds increased : until eight o'clock 

 they kept up their aerial mad gambols, and then, as on 

 the previous evenings, the flock gradually dispersed. 



On the evening of the 19th the performance was 

 repeated, the birds congregated numbering about sixty. 

 On the 20th the number had diminished to about forty, 

 and an equal number returned on the following even- 

 ing ; and this was the last time. We watched in vain 



