112 BRITISH BIRDS' EGGS. 



America it is a well-known bird. The nest is described as 

 composed of dry sticks, willow-twigs, grasses, leaves, green 

 and dry, feathers, and whatever rags the bird? meets with. 

 The eggs, which are pure white, are from four to six in 

 number. Two broods are reared in a season. 



SPINY-TAIED MARTIN. Hirundo caudacuta. We find 

 this species mentioned in lists of British birds, but at pre- 

 sent can give no account of its breeding habits or of its 

 eggs. 



THE COMMON SWIFT, Cypselus opus. The Common 

 Swift arrives in this country among the latest of the migra- 

 tory birds, and departs early. Its powers of flight must 

 have astonished and amused any who have watched it 

 sweeping with a shriek of gladness through the cloudless 

 fields of air on a calm summer's evening, and performing 

 the most rapid, graceful, and varied evolutions around the 

 lofty spire or the turrets of some ancient building. It is 

 ever on the wing, except while sleeping or incubating. It 

 breeds in holes in cliffs, towers, steeples, old buildings, and 

 some other situations. The nest consists of dried grasses or 

 straws, lined with feathers, and the eggs, from two to four 

 in number, are pure white. (PL IX. fig. 59.) 



THE ALPINE SWIFT. Cypselus Alpimts. This is a larger 



