588 



6 



I killed near Lipi was sent home to Mr. Blyth, who recorded it, and gave the specimen to 

 Mr. Gould." Mr. Blyth (Ibis, 1866, p. 339) states that the India Museum has it from Afghan- 

 istan. Herr von Pelzeln, in his article on the ornithology of Thibet and the Himalayas (Ibis, 

 1868, p. 306), states that it is found "south-west from Leh ;" and Pere David writes that it 

 occurs in Mongolia, where it arrives in April. Dr. G. Radde met with both the present species 

 and Cypselus pacificus in South-eastern Siberia. In the Chingan Mountains, he says (Reis. im 

 Siid. von Ost-Sib. p. 132), the present species was far the commonest. In the Bureja Mountains 

 he seldom observed it; but in the Oka valley, at about 3000 feet above the sea, it was common; 

 here, however, in the Ulan Chada Mountains, the other species (G. pacificus) was the commoner 

 of the two. Dr. Dybowski also speaks of it as being common in Dauria. Mr. Swinhoe describes 

 a Swift (P. Z. S. 1870, p. 435) from China under the name of Cypselus pekinensis, of which I 

 have not been able to examine a specimen, but which is probably referable to the present 

 species. 



The entire structure of this bird shows that it is formed to inhabit the air ; and indeed it 

 appears to be only really at home when on the wing, whereas when on the ground it is utterly 

 out of its element, and as totally helpless as a fish out of water, being unable to rise into the air 

 again. It frequents old towers, steeples, ruins, and rugged rocks, breeding in these places, and 

 appears to be quite as much at home in the crowded cities as when far away from human 

 habitations. Their food consists entirely of insects, chiefly of hymenoptera and diptera, which 

 fly at a considerable height above the ground; and it invariably catches them on the wing. 

 According as the weather is, and consequently according to the altitude in which the insects are 

 most numerous, it flies high or low, and during rainy weather, or early in the morning and late 

 in the evening, the Swifts fly tolerably low, but during fine clear weather they may be seen 

 during the daytime at a great altitude. When flying round in pursuit of their prey, more 

 especially in dry sunny weather, they utter a prolonged, loud, harsh scream, which, as field- 

 naturalists who have seen them in the winter say they do not then utter it, must most probably 

 be to them what the song is to other more vocally gifted birds, an expression of pleasure used 

 chiefly, if not solely, during the breeding-season. They feed generally on small insects; and 

 when collecting food for their young, they accumulate a number together in their gape until a 

 sort of ball or mass is formed, when they hurry with it to their nest. 



We have no bird in Europe swifter on the wing than the present species and its Alpine ally. 

 Macgillivray, who is always so happy in his descriptions of the habits of birds, thus describes the 

 flight of the common Swift : — " Its flight is performed by quick flaps of its long narrow wings, 

 alternating with long glidings or sailings, during which these organs seem motionless, but 

 extended nearly at a right angle. If you watch an individual, you observe it speeding away 

 with quick motions of the wings, which being raised or depressed over a great range, seem to 

 alternate with each other ; but this is not in reality the case, at least I have failed in satisfying 

 myself that it is so. There it shoots along on motionless wings, turns to the right and left, 

 flutters for a moment, ascends, comes down abruptly, curves, and winds in various directions, 

 darts in among its fellows, and is lost to your view. The ease with which it rises, falls, bends to 

 either side, glides in short or long curves, or stops in the midst of its full career, is less 

 astonishing than it ought to be, familiarity in this, as in other instances, producing a disposition 



