150 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 



ployed. This, and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and 

 under mandible, have induced a discerning ^ naturalist to suppose 

 that this species might constitute a genus per se. 



In London a party of swifts frequents the Tower, playing and 

 feeding over the river just below the bridge : others haunt some 

 of the churches of the Borough next the fields ; but do not venture, 

 like the house-martin, into the close crowded part of the town. 



The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this 

 swallow, calling it ritig swala, from the perpetual rings or circles 

 that it takes round the scene of it's nidification. 



Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles with hard cases over 

 their wings, as well as on the softer insects ; but it does not 

 appear how they can procure gravel to grind their food, as 

 swallows do, since they never settle on the ground. Young 

 ones, over-run with hippoboscm, are sometimes found, under their 

 nests, fallen to the ground : the number of vermin rendering 

 their abode insupportable any longer. They frequent in this 

 village several abject cottages ; yet a succession still haunts the 

 same unlikely roofs : a good proof this that the same birds return 

 to the same spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under 

 these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on 

 the wing. 



On the fifth of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over 

 the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest ; but so strongly 

 was she affected by natural a-Topyrj for her brood, which she 

 supposed to be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she 

 would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to be 

 taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and placed 

 on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as help- 

 less as a new-born child. While we contemplated their naked 

 bodies, their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and their heads, 

 too heavy for their necks to support, we could not but wonder 

 when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more than 

 a fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost with 

 the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor ; and perhaps, in their 

 emigration, must traverse vast continents and oceans as distant 

 as the equator. So soon does Nature advance small birds to 

 their rjXiKia, or state of perfection ; while the progressive growth 

 of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! 



I am, &c. 



1 John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D. 



