886 BIEDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



or cliffs are not to be found the Swift will make its 

 nest in a hole in a tree. 



The Swift seems to have almost an unlimited 

 power of flight, as it may be seen on the wing from 

 early morning to late in the night, either hawking 

 about for its insect food or indulging in noisy 

 quarrels with others of its own species, generally 

 high in the air, far above the Swallows and Martins, 

 except in very wet weather, when it is driven from 

 its happy hunting-grounds aloft to seek food nearer 

 the earth; but even then it never alights on the 

 ground, from which it has some trouble in rising, as 

 the Swallow has been described as doing: on those 

 occasions when it is driven near to the ground it 

 sometimes makes an incautious dash at the artificial 

 fly of the fly-fisher, and is said to give considerable 

 play before it can be landed. The peculiar form of 

 this bird, as well as its weight, would hardly lead 

 one at first to suppose it possessed such power of 

 flight : the wings, certainly, are very long and 

 very much arched, the first primary being 

 the longest, from which they decrease rapidly in 

 length; the secondaries are nearly equal in 

 length, and the tertials very short in proportion to 

 the size of the bird, more so, perhaps, than those of 

 any other bird except the Gannet. The great power 

 and velocity of flight of this bird, taken together with 

 its weight, bears out, to a certain extent, the asser- 

 tion of the Duke of Argyle that the heavier in pro- 



