SWIFTS. 



association of ideas, since that note never occurs 

 but in the most lovely summer weather. 



They never settle on the ground but through 

 accident, and when down can hardly rise, on ac- 

 count of the shortness of their legs and the length 

 of their wings : neither can they walk, but only 

 crawl, but they have a strong grasp with their 

 feet, by which they cling to walls. Their bodies 

 being flat, they can enter a very narrow crevice ; 

 and where they cannot pass on their bellies, they 

 will turn up edgewise. 



The particular formation of the foot discrimi- 

 nates the swift from all the British hirundines, 

 and, indeed, from all other known birds, the 

 hirundo melba, or great white-bellied swift, of 

 Gibraltar excepted ; for it is so disposed as to carry 

 " omnes quatuor digit os anticos," all its four toes 

 forward ; besides, the least toe, which should be 

 the back toe, consists of one bone alone, and the 

 other three only of two apiece a construction 

 most rare and peculiar, but nicely adapted to the 

 purposes in which their feet are employed. This, 

 and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and 

 under mandible, have induced a discerning natu- 

 ralist 1 to suppose that this species might consti- 

 tute a genus per se 2 . 



In London, a party of swifts frequents the 

 Tower, playing and feeding over the river just 

 below the Bridge ; others haunt some of the 

 churches of the Borough next the fields, but do 

 not venture, like the house-martin, into the close, 

 crowded part of the town. v 



The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent 

 name on this swallow, calling it riny-swala, from 



1 John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M. D. 



2 The genus Cypselus of Illiger is now generally adopted 

 for this group. It is also the Apus of Belon. W. J. 



