178 BRITISH BIRDS 



Besides the two indigenous larks, we have as rare stragglers the 

 following four species : the crested lark (Alauda cristata), an in- 

 habitant of Europe and Asia; the short-toed lark (Calendrella 

 brachydactyla), from southern Europe; the white-winged lark 

 (MelanocorypTia sibirica), a Siberian species, obtained once in 

 England ; and the shore-lark (Otocorys alpestris), an irregular winter 

 visitor from North Europe, Asia, and America. 



Swift. 

 Cypselus apus 



Sooty brown; chin greyish white; tarsi feathered; bill, feet, 

 and claws shining black. Length, seven and a half inches. 



The swift arrives in this country about the end of April or early 

 in May, and from that tune onwards, throughout the spring and 

 summer months, day after day, from morning until evening, he 

 may be seen overhead, in twos, threes, and half-dozens, pursuing hia 

 mad, everlasting race through the air. Even as late as ten o'clock 

 in the evening, or later, when his form can no longer be followed 

 by the straining sight, his shrill, exulting cry may be heard at 

 intervals, now far off, and now close at hand, showing that the day- 

 light hours of these northern latitudes are not long enough to ex- 

 haust his wonderful energy. It has even been supposed by some 

 naturalists that, when not incubating, he spends the entire night on 

 the wing. This is hard to believe ; but if we consider his rate of 

 speed, and the number of hours he visibly spends on the whig, it 

 would be within the mark to say that the swift, in a sense, ' puts a 

 girdle round the earth ' two or three times a month. Year after 

 year the swifts return to the same localities to breed, and there are 

 few towns, villages, hamlets, or even isolated mansions and farm- 

 houses in the British Islands where this bird is not a summer guest. 

 The bunch of swifts to be seen rushing round the tower of every 

 village church are undoubtedly the same birds, or their descendants, 

 that have occupied the place from time immemorial ; and it is pro- 

 bable that the annual increase is just sufficient to make good the 

 losses by death each year. It is hard to believe that a life so stren- 

 uous can last very long, and impossible to believe that birds so free 

 of the air are subject to many fatal accidents. A spell of intense 

 frost is very fatal to them in spring, but the cold is their only enemy 

 in this country. 



