Common Swift. 309 



holes are in the breeding season occupied by the Swifts, and to 

 watch them on a summer's evening careering round the tower, 

 several hundreds in the air at once, as they dash by on 

 unwearied wing, and to listen to the wild screechings from 

 so many throats, is a treat which the ornithologist will look in vain 

 for elsewhere, and which on two separate occasions I happen to 

 have witnessed at Turin. Its colour, with the exception of a 

 dusky- white chin, is smoke-black ; its head is peculiarly flat as 

 well as broad, and the neck very short. It is singular that in 

 rough and windy weather it will not sally forth on its aerial 

 rambles, but contents itself in the dark in its retreat in some 

 tower or wall ; thus (as Bewick remarks) ' the life of the Swift 

 seems to be divided into two extremes the one of the most 

 violent exertion, the other of perfect inaction ; they must either 

 shoot through the air, or remain close in their holes.' Their 

 provincial name in Wiltshire is ' the Screech.' - In France it is 

 Martinet cle Muraille ; in Germany, Thurm Schwalbe ; in Italy, 

 Rondine maggiore volgarm, 'Common greater Swallow;' in Spain, 

 Avion; and in 'Portugal, Andorinhao. In Sweden it is known as the 

 Ring Svala from its habit of careering in circles round its nesting- 

 place, and the Torn Svala, or ' Tower Swallow,' from the localities 

 it frequents ; also the Sval Hok, or ' Swallow Hawk,' because it is 

 popularly believed to seize and eat up its relatives, the Swallows. 

 [I much regret that I cannot include in the Wiltshire list the 

 larger species, the 'Alpine' or 'White-bellied Swift (Cypselus 

 alpinus), with which I have become very familiar on the shores 

 of the Mediterranean and in several parts of Switzerland, for 

 indeed it is a bird to be admired. With longer wings and even 

 more powerful flight than its congener, it is, in my opinion, the 

 most perfect specimen of a bird formed for living in the air, and 

 darting on its way with the utmost velocity.] 



CAPRIMULGID^E (THE GOATSUCKERS). 



There is no family of birds so illused by nomenclature as this ; 

 not only have they received a false character, and an imputation 



