414 HIRUNDINID.E 



other, not less than 120 were seen. Of the Hirundines, a very 

 few house-martins only, mingled with them at the former 

 locality, and at the latter, not an individual of any other species. 

 Both places were favourite haunts of the swallow until the pre- 

 ceding few years, when it became so scarce. It is very singular 

 thus to observe the swift occupy its place, as the sand-martin has 

 done elsewhere, both these species having had entirely different 

 beats, when the swallow appeared in ordinary numbers. 



Once only have I witnessed these birds keeping regularly at 

 a lower elevation than swallows. This was on the 3rd of July, 

 1838, a beautiful sun-bright day, when numbers of them ap- 

 peared flying over Strangford Lough, near Portaferry, at from 

 twenty to forty yards above the surface of the sea, while, in the 

 higher stratum of air, swallows were abundant. I have observed 

 the swift flying over low islets of this lough, remote from any 

 breeding-place. 



Bewick remarks (vol. i. p. 267, ed. of 1821) that swifts "are 

 said to avoid heat, and for this reason pass the middle of the day 

 in their holes [and that] in the morning and evening they go out 

 in quest of provision." Mr. Macgillivray, too, observes, that " in 

 dry and sunny weather [the swift] generally rests in the middle 

 of the day/' This has, I conceive, been assumed from the cir- 

 cumstance that swifts are not seen about their breeding haunts 

 throughout the day, like the swallow and martin. Instead, how- 

 ever, of lying concealed at such times, they are ranging far abroad. 

 During the very warmest and brightest days I have commonly 

 seen them sweeping in great numbers over mountain heaths and 

 around the summit of Devis, the highest mountain in our neigh- 

 bourhood,* and near to which they have not any nesting-places : 

 — in warm days, too, without sunshine, they may be seen feeding 



* 1575 feet above the sea. When here on the 15th of May, 1836 (a remarkably fine 

 day), to witness the eclipse of the sun, I saw fully as many swifts as had ever ap- 

 peared when the season was farther advanced. 



I observed them in like manner on the 6th of May, 1841, about the lofty moun- 

 tain-tops, and there only, in the island of Syra, one of the group of the Cyclades. 

 Captain Cook, in his Sketches in Spain, thus mentions a similar propensity of the 

 alpine swift : — " I have heard they were not uncommon in Catalonia, but I never met 

 with them, probably from their habit of going to feed at vast heights and distances in 

 the daytime, which prevents their being seen." (Vol. ii. p. 276.) 



