SWIFTS. 



the perpetual rings, or circles that it takes round 

 the scene of its modification. 



Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles with 

 hard cases over their wings, as well as on the 

 softer insects ; but it does not appear how they 

 can procure gravel to grind their food, as swallows 

 do, since they never settle on the ground. Young 

 ones, overrun with hippoboeca, are sometimes 

 found, under their nests, fallen to the ground, the 

 number of vermin rendering their abode insup- 

 portable any longer. They frequent in this vil- 

 lage several abject cottages ; yet a succession still 

 haunts the same unlikely roofs a good proof this 

 that the same birds return to the same spots. As 

 they must stoop very low to get up under these 

 humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes 

 catch them on the wing. 



On the 5th of July, 1775, I again untiled part 

 of a roof over the nest of a swift. The dam sat 

 in the nest ; but so strongly was she affected by 

 natural cropy*) for her brood, which she supposed 

 to be in danger, that, regardless of her own 

 safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by 

 them, permitting herself to be taken in hand. 

 The squab young we brought down and placed 

 on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and 

 were as helpless as a new-born child. While we 

 contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy 

 disproportioned abdomina, and their heads too 

 heavy for their necks to support, we could not 

 but wonder when we reflected that these shiftless 

 beings, in a little more than a fortnight, would 

 be able to dash through the air almost with the 

 inconceivable swiftness of a meteor, and, perhaps, 

 in their emigration, must traverse vast continents 

 and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon 

 does Nature advance small birds to their ?/Xt/c/a, 



