22 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



As the tail tells at the start, so it tells at the finish 

 of a flight. When a bird is about to settle on the 

 tree or the ground especially, it has seemed to me, 

 when it is hesitating the tail is very active, stretched 

 to its utmost. May it even be used on occasion for 

 brake or buffer ? May not the swifts that, a few 

 summers since, I watched as, at high speed, they 

 dashed to roost under the eaves, 1 have been furnished 

 with some means by which to stop suddenly against 

 the brick wall, and yet not hurt themselves ? I could 

 hear the sound of stiff quills smartly brushed on the 

 wall to which these roosting swifts rushed, but this, 

 I think, came from the long, raking wings spread 

 out. We know, however, that tails can at times be 

 used for rude work; the woodpeckers and the nut- 

 hatch may almost sit on theirs, as they cling to the 

 bark of the tree and pry into the cranny and hammer 

 the touchwood. Thus, the tail might be strong 

 enough for use as a break-speed. 



For progress, then, the tail is always used at the 

 start of a flight from the ground whether the bird 

 spring from the ground with its head pointing into or 

 a harder "take off" turned from the wind; used 

 with vigour when the bird is about to alight; used 

 full-spread in the acts of hovering and soaring; in 



1 Whilst we were staying at Leamington with a friend, the late 

 Miss A. E. Darwin, one of the most delicate and beautiful characters 

 I ever knew. Miss Darwin was grand-daughter of Erasmus Darwin, 

 and a first-cousin of Charles Darwin. She was a true naturalist ; an 

 evolutionist ; an earnest believer in revealed religion. 



