THE COMMON SWIFT. 409 



described, so soon after their arrival, as to afford sufficient proof 

 that the cry did not proceed from the " males serenading their 

 sitting hens/' as incubation had not then commenced.* Nay, 

 from the time that it has ceased until that of the bird's departure, 

 the screaming is continued to the same degree as at any other 

 period. But I cannot coincide in the opinion that ' ' this action 

 and cry are the consequences of irritability excited by the highly 

 electrical state of the atmosphere at such times." This idea 

 differing from my own, previous to the publication of the ad- 

 mirable work in which it appeared, I gave some attention to the 

 subject for two summers, to see how far my preconceived opinion was 

 justified. In the years 1832 and 1833, from the 7th and 9th of 

 May, the days on which the swifts first came under my observation 

 about Belfast, until the 1st and 3rd of June (when I left home), 

 they daily kept flying about in small parties, screaming loudly, in 

 dull and gloomy, as well as in bright and cloudless weather. 



The following particular notices on this subject are abbreviated 

 from my Journal : — 



May 24th, 1832. — For the last eight or ten days the swift's scream has been 

 daily heard ; and when present this evening at the meeeting of an Historic Debating 

 Society, the swifts obtruded themselves on my attention by flying, "in small parties," 

 closely past the windows, screaming most furiously. Though amusing to the orni- 

 thologist, it must have been very annoying to the assembled company, to be "sere- 

 naded " by their ill-timed scream, which not only jarred most discordantly with the 

 " eloquent music " discoursed within, but for the time being entirely drowned the 

 voices of the speakers ; indeed almost seemed to be intended as a mockery of what 

 was passing there. During these ten days the weather has been rather dark and 

 cloudy ; the barometer remarkably stationary, and very high. With the exception 

 of a few showers on one day, no rain has fallen. 



May 27th and June 3rd, 1832. — Weather remarkably fine and warm: sky almost 

 cloudless. The screaming of swifts heard above every other sound, about the localities 

 frequented by them. 



* In the last two years, — 1847 and 1848, — my attention was directed to the 

 earliest swifts of the season which I saw at Belfast by their loud screams. The date 

 was the 9th of May in both years. In the former year, they had been seen over that 

 town by another person on the 7th of the month. On the 4th, they were observed 

 between Newry and Portadown. I have often remarked what doubtless led White to 

 conjecture that the cry of the swift is the serenade of the males to " their sitting 

 hens," as, at the season of incubation, these birds (but of which sex I cannot say) 

 may often be observed flying about in the neighbourhood of their nests, and heard 

 screaming only " when they come close to the walls or eaves." 



