BRITISH BIRDS. 99 



from the unusual cold ; some scores were picked out of the river Ouse, 

 Huntingdonshire, near S. Neots ; others settled on the heads of men ; and 

 their eggs were deserted. 



Bishop Pontoppidan says, " Everybody knows that, towards winter, 

 Swallows plunge into freshwater lakes." If he had seen the Swallows in the 

 Ouse, how triumphant would he have been ! Nevertheless he was a very 

 fine old fellow, and, for his time, did good service. Even in the present day 

 his works are read with pleasure. 



As regards the ornis of Great Britain, the Swift resembles the Garefowl 

 (^Alca impennis, Linn.) in the abnormality of its members of locomotion. 

 One is a fowl of the air, rarely coming to the ground ; the other is a fowl of 

 the sea, which seldom resorts to the shore : one, therefore, has abnormal wings ; 

 the other, abnormal feet. Concerning Alca impennis I say nothing ; but of the 

 Swift, a word or two. Owen states that " birds tread on their toes only : 

 not more than three toes are directed forward ; the fourth, when it exists, is 

 backward and is shorter, usually rises higher from the metatarsal, and takes 

 less share of the superincumbent weight. No two toes in the same foot of 

 any bird have the same number of joints ; also, there is a constant numerical 

 progression in the number of the phalanges or toe-joints from the innermost 

 to the outermost toe. When the back toe exists, it is the innermost of the 

 four toes, and has two phalanges ; the next has three ; the third (or middle 

 of the front toes) has four ; and the outermost, five phalanges. When the 

 back toe is wanting the toes have three, four, and five phalanges respectively. 

 When the toes are two, as in the Ostrich, their phalanges are respectively 

 four and five in number, thus showing those toes to answer to the two outer- 

 most in tridactyle and tetradactyle birds," — North British Review, no. Ixiii. 

 p. 247, art. 10, Feb. 1860. 



In an article by P. L. Sclater, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S. (P. Z. S. 1865, p. 593), 

 he says, " I consider that the Swifts have no relationship whatever with 

 the Swallows (Hirundinidee)." He proceeds to describe the form of the 

 sternum of the former, and then comes to the phalanges of the toes :— "The 



p 



