354 DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSEUM. 



cotton, and having given it the form of a bottle, 

 adds a small cupola outside for the male to rest in. 

 In the bottom of this case are the goat-suckers, 

 nineteen in number; they have the light soft plu- 

 mage of the nocturnal birds, and their mouth is 

 so wide that they can swallow the largest insects. 

 They only fly about in the evening. The female 

 lays its eggs on the ground, or on a stone, and 

 only sits on them a very short time. An American 

 species (caprimulgus grandis), is the size of an 

 owl. One from Africa (caprimulgus longipennis], 

 is remarkable from a feather tw r ice as long as its 

 body, which springs from the carpus of each 

 wing, and is only feathered at the extremity. 



The twenty-second case contains, first, the nu- 

 merous genus of the swallows, of which the 

 Museum has twenty-seven species. The first is 

 the hirundo apus, of all birds best formed for 

 flight ; its feet are so short, and its wings so long, 

 that when it is on the ground it cannot rise again; 

 it therefore passes the greater part of its life in 

 the air, and when it has rested for a short while 

 on a wall or on the trees, it falls to recommence 

 its flight. The swallows which immediately fol- 

 low it, have longer feet, which enable them to 

 take their flight from the ground, and rest on it 

 longer. The hirundo urbica, or window swal- 

 low, is universally known. It quits us in the 



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