SWALLOW AND SWALLOW-LIKE BIRDS. 133 



SAND-MARTIN— 5 inches; upper paits mouse-brown; 



under parts white, with mouse-brown breast-band ; tail 



bluntly forked. Note, a guttural sound. 

 SWIFT— 7 inches ; sooty-black, with gray chin, but during 



flight appears wholly black; wings very long and 



slender, like a pickaxe ; tail very bluntly forked. 



Note, shrill scream. 



SWIFT.— Plate 60. Length, 7 inches. Sooty- 

 black, with greenish gloss, except the chin, which, 

 although gray, is quite inconspicuous during flight ; 

 tail very bluntly forked. Summer migrant. 



Eggs.— 2, unglossed, chalk-white ; I'O x '65 inch, 

 and therefore much elongated (plate 126). 



Nest. — Scantily formed of straw, grass, and feathers, 

 and placed in holes in rocks, steeples, towers, and 

 beneath the eaves of houses. 



Distribution. — General, though less common in some 

 parts of the west of Scotland and of Ireland. 



To state that this bird nests in holes in house-eaves, 

 in the walls of ruins, church towers, crevices in cliffs, 

 and such places, aiFords small indication of where he 

 is likely to be found. Although well diffused. Swifts 

 are fewer than Swallows, or than either of the 

 Martins, and the bird that one moment dashes 

 screaming down the village street, the next is away 

 up in the blue sky. The Swift lives on the wing, 

 and is all but unfitted for perching or walking. The 

 wings, long, slender, curved, and set well forward on 

 the shoulders, give the bird when flying the appearance 

 of a pickaxe. The Swift, like the birds of the 

 Swallow tribe, is a frequenter of water for the sake 



