THROUGH THE YEAR 117 



lows and martins prove, and the swift often hawks 

 low in June and July. 



The swift was the theme of one of the best essays 

 on natural flight I ever read, by Mr. A. E. Crawley. 

 I have never doubted that the screw is the root 

 secret of all natural flight since I read Pettigrew, and 

 then observed for myself the build and contours of a 

 wing and of a single shed feather of a pigeon. Mr. 

 Crawley, too, insists on it. The bird, he says, 

 screws its way through the air. It is a live auger ; 

 and he describes by word and diagram several screw 

 feats of the swift. He touches on this very feat I saw 

 at Leamington, the feat of rushing to roost at a high 

 pace. 



But the swift has a tour d'aile more splendid to 

 see than this. Moving at a hundred miles an hour 

 it can suddenly twist clean round and shoot itself 

 at a fresh tangent ! There are several kinds of 

 English bats, I know, that can suddenly jerk them- 

 selves at a right angle, or at an acute angle even, on 

 to a new aerial course ; and in " The Airy Way " 

 I wrote about one of them, a very juggler of flight 

 flinging itself up and down, sideways, or almost 

 backwards, whilst travelling at its best speed. 

 But the best speed of the quickest English bat is 

 nothing against the speed of the swift, and this 

 sudden turn whilst moving at a tremendous speed 

 of a hundred miles, as Mr. Crawley reckons it, is the 

 climax. 



Mr. Crawley has a fine phrase about the build 

 of the swift. He speaks of its " stream-like con- 



