Typical Swifts 563 



sticks, twigs, leaves, seeds, and, in some species, bits of paper, and all are cemented 

 together by saliva and fastened to the walls of caverns, hollow trees, chimneys, or 

 to the branches of trees. The number of eggs varies in different species from 

 one to as many as six, a very common number being two; they are always 

 immaculate white. The notes of the Swifts are rather harsh, monotonous, and 

 unmusical chatterings. 



Typical Swifts. There are differences of opinion as to the proper division 

 of the family, 1 and, as Mr. Lucas well says, " The precise status of the Swifts 

 may well be called a little uncertain," but for present purposes it may be well 

 to stick to the usual arrangement which separates them into three subfamilies. 

 In the first of these (the Micro podince.} the tarsus is distinctly feathered, and, as 

 already mentioned, the outer and middle toes are provided with only three 

 joints. The largest genus (Micropus), and the one giving the name to the sub- 

 family, embraces about twenty-five forms which are of almost world-wide dis- 

 tribution though not present in North America. They are sooty black -or mouse- 

 brown birds, often with a metallic gloss and a white rump or white collar, and 

 a single species has the sides of the neck white. One of the best-known species 

 is the Common Swift, Beveling, or Screecher (M. apus}, as it is sometimes called 

 in England, a bird about seven and a half inches in length and sooty black, with 

 a slight greenish gloss throughout except for a dusky white chin. It is common 

 throughout the whole of Europe in summer, spending the winter months in 

 Africa. In England, where it is a familiar and well-known bird, it arrives in 

 late April or early May, and, says Mr. Hudson, " Year after year the Swifts return 

 to the same locality to breed, and there are few towns, villages, hamlets, or even 

 isolated mansions and farm-houses where this bird is not a summer guest." 

 It is extremely energetic, spending not only all the hours of daylight on the wing 

 but far into the night its "exulting cry may be heard at intervals now far off, 

 and now close at hand," pursuing its mad, everlasting race through the air. 

 It frequents old towns, ruins, steeples, chimneys, and rocks, and although its 

 notes are usually described as a harsh, prolonged scream or screech, they are 

 not wholly without attractiveness. The nest, a somewhat rude cup-shaped 

 affair of straws, moss, hair, feathers, etc., glued together by a salivary secretion, 

 is placed in a hole in a church tower or house, under the eaves of a thatched 

 cottage, in a cranny in a cliff or exceptionally in a hollow tree. The eggs are 

 two in number and but a single brood of young is reared in a season. Paler 

 subspecific races of this occur to the south and east. 



Alpine Swift. The largest member of this genus is the Alpine Swift (M. 

 melba) of southern Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia, a bird eight and 

 a half inches long, mouse-brown in color but with a white throat and abdomen. 

 It is a gregarious species and one of the most powerful flyers among birds, roosting 

 and breeding in communities in buildings and rocky cliffs, and flying enormous 



1 In an article published a few years ago Mr. F. A. Lucas proposed to raise the group of Swifts 

 to a superfamily (Micropodoidea) and to then divide it into two families, the Micropodida and the 

 Dendrochelidonidce, on purely anatomical grounds, but lack of sufficient material makes it seem on 

 the whole best to retain the older arrangement, at least for a time. 



