By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



219 



sharp claws being required for clinging to the face of the bank, or 

 hanging to the roof of the half made tunnel, while the beak per- 

 forates and loosens and excavates the sand : the gallery formed is 

 always more or less winding, sloping slightly upwards, and con- 

 tains a soft nest at the extremity : it skims over meadows, and 

 more commonly over lakes aud rivers, where it finds an abundant 

 supply of insect food : it also drinks and bathes as it flies, after 

 the manner of its congeners previously described, and is by far the 

 smallest of the Hirundines. 



"Common Swift" {Cypselus apas). The scientific name of this 

 bird, (signifying " the hive-builder without feet ; ") is intended to 

 characterize its habits and appearance : cypselus rather obscurely 

 denoting its habit of building in holes of walls; apus referring to the 

 shortness of its feet : it has indeed feet so short that they may 

 almost be said to be wanting, and are quite unfit for moving on 

 the ground, on which it never alights, for in truth the shortness 

 of the tarsi and the length of wing render it unable to rise from 

 an even surface : its toes, four in number, are all directed forwards, 

 giving the foot the appearance of that of a quadruped rather than 

 of a bird ; the claws are much curved, enabling it to cling to the 

 perpendicular face of a wall, rock or tower, which form its prin- 

 cipal resting places ; thus the feet, useless for locomotion, where 

 they are not needed, are perfect for grasping, for which they are 

 required : the wings are extremely long and powerful, giving the 

 bird astonishing swiftness and endurance of flight, so that for 

 sixteen consecutive hours, from the early dawn to twilight of a 

 long summer's day, these indefatigable birds will career at an 

 immense height above the earth, and there at such vast elevations 

 they not only find innumerable insects which soar so high above 

 our heads, but what is more astonishing, an abundance of a species 

 of minute spider, with which those lofty regions appear to be 

 tenanted, and of whose numbers we occasionally form some con- 

 ception, when in an autumnal morning we see the ground carpeted 

 with the thinnest webs glistening with moisture : these are the 

 webs of the gossamer spider, which rendered heavier by the dew 

 settling on their slender threads fall to the ground and cover 



