they were bubbling over with vitality. When high up they 

 look like so naany animated bows and arrows — ^the arrows 

 being, perhaps, somewhat short and thick. The swift, 

 it is worth remembering, is a near kinsman of the humming- 

 bird, which also has a long narrow wing. Both alike agree 

 in this peculiarity — an upper arm-bone of excessive shortness, 

 and a hand of excessive length. No other birds approach 

 them in this. The only other bird which has wings quite so 

 ribbon-like, when extended, is the albatross — one of our 

 rarest British birds. But here the proportions of the wing 

 are reversed, for the upper arm-bone is of great length, while 

 the hand is relatively short. 



There is something inexpressibly soothing about the 

 twilight of a summer's evening. Most birds are abed. The 

 swift can be heard high up, the " woolly bats, with beady 

 eyes," are silently flitting all round one, turning and twisting 

 as no bird ever turns. But for the chorus of the swifts, like 

 black furies, and heard only at intervals, and faintly, all is 

 silence, relieved, perchance, by the drowsy hum of a blunder- 

 ing dor-beetle. Then, suddenly, if one be near some gorse, 

 or bracken-covered common, the stillness is broken by a 

 strange " churring," like a bubbling whistle, rising and falling 

 in volume. This may be followed by a loud " clap." And 

 yet the source of these strange notes cannot be located, 

 nor can any living thing be seen to which they could be 



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