THE HOME OF THE SWIFT. 89 



enable it to hang on to a smooth wall prevent it from 

 resting on a flat horizontal surface. Therefore a swift, 

 from the moment it leaves the nest until the time it re- 

 turns, is constantly on the wing ; to enable it to endure 

 such prolonged flights it is provided with most powerful 

 pinions ; hence Richard Jefferies calls the swift " the black 

 albatross of our skies/' " Like the albatross that floats 

 over the ocean and sleeps on the wing, the swift's scimitar- 

 like pinions are careless of repose." These birds, however, 

 do rest at times, and one or two swifts in every colony may 

 usually be seen hanging on to the wall close under the roof 

 and looking very much like bats. 



The beginning of the nest, then, offers no difficulty to the 

 swift. The bird flies to the selected site, carrying far back 

 in the angle of the beak a feather or other material for the 

 nest It presses this with its beak against the rafter and 

 holds it there until the saliva it secretes has had time to 

 harden and firmly fix the object a process which takes 

 about five minutes. The swift then goes off in search of 

 other material which it affixes in the same way, and con- 

 tinues to work in this fashion until the nest is finished. I 

 have been struck by the slowness with which the work pro- 

 ceeds. In this respect a swift would do credit to any 

 Trade Union; he would, however, be disqualified for mem- 

 bership on account of the long hours that he works. It is 

 not laziness on the part of the swift which causes progress 

 to be slow ; it is stupidity. In this respect the bird differs 

 from the British workman. I have never been able to re- 

 main sufficiently long in one bungalow to observe the whole 

 process of nest construction from start to finish, but I 

 should fix three weeks as the minimum time required by a 

 pair of swifts for the building of a nest. 



I once timed a couple of swifts at work. At 8-13 a.m. one 

 bird left the half-built nest, the other being away; it return- 

 ed at 8-57 followed by the other bird at 9-2. At 9-5 both 

 birds left the nest, the former having added a feather and 

 the latter nothing. Neither bird had returned to the nest 



