180 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



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 hippobosc(B^ are some- 

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

 number of vermin rendering their abode insupportable any 

 longer. They frequent in this village 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 July 5th, 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 a-ropyrj 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 unwieldly 

 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 ?;AtKta, or state of perfection ; 

 while the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds 

 is slow and tedious ! 



