THE SWIFT 5 
screech of the passing Swifts is heard as they swoop past us in their mad career, 
and still rings upon our startled ears long after their marvellous powers of flight 
have borne them beyond the range of vision. Soon they return again, rising and 
falling in amorous chase, or wheel in devious circles high up in the blue vault of 
heaven; revelling apparently in the intensity of the heat and the cessation for a 
time from parental duties. I have often noticed this habit in the Swifts, of leaving 
the church towers and other nesting places about the noon-hour, as if to stretch 
their cramped limbs, and seek their food at a time when their eggs would least 
suffer from temporary exposure. There is another period, too, when the Swift 
almost invariably appears abroad, though previously perhaps, unseen for hours. 
The air is hot and stifling, and a sudden gloom creeps as it were over the earth 
and sky. An almost painful stillness is broken only by the chirping of the 
Sparrows under the tiles, already conscious of a coming storm. Dark angry clouds 
are drifting across the heavens, and one broad mass, perceptibly increasing and 
assuming each moment a deeper shade, bespeaks the lowering tempest. Now, as 
we stand watching that strange yellow light, which spreads itself for awhile over 
surrounding objects, as one by one the heavy drops foretell the drenching shower, 
strange dark forms are seen sweeping through the air in the very ‘eye of the 
storm,’ and the sooty plumage of the Swifts contrasts even with the blackest 
portions of the surrounding atmosphere. No wonder, then, that their appearance 
at such times, issuing from their fastnesses as the very ‘demons of the storm,’ 
coupled with their ‘uncanny’ looks and thrilling cries, should have won for them 
in a superstitious age the local name of Devilins.” (Birds of Norfolk, pp. 343-4). 
The above is so accurate a description of what one has frequently witnessed, 
that it seemed a pity not to quote it: but it is not only in such a situation 
that the lightning-like flight of the Swift is a thing to marvel at. As one 
wanders through some country lane glancing from side to side at the hedge- 
rows in search of nests, a dark figure swiftly glides past, sweeps almost to the 
ground, rising just clears the top bar of the stile which closes the lane, and is 
gone in an instant; watching its headlong flight, one would have deemed it 
impossible that it could thus by a few inches evade an obstruction in its path: 
but when at full speed the Swift seems to have perfect control over itself in the 
air, whereas in a confined space it blunders up against everything, however slowly 
it may fly. 
The nest of the Swift, which swarms with fleas and ticks, is placed in crannies 
in cliffs, old ruins, church towers, under roofs or thatches of buildings, in cowls 
of oast-houses, or hollow branches of decayed trees. The structure is flattish and 
roughly formed of straws, grasses, feathers, moss, wool, and cotton; glued together 
