OF SELBORNE, 
20? 
much infested witli tliose pests to tlie genus called nippo- 
hoscce hirundinis ; and often wriggle and scratch them selves^ 
in their flight, to get rid of that clinging annoyance. 
Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh 
screaming note ; yet there are ears to which it is not 
displeasing, from an agreeable association of ideas, since 
that note never occurs but in the most lovely summer 
weather. 
They never settle on the ground but through accident ; 
and when down can hardly rise, on account of the shortness 
of their legs and the length of their wings : neither can 
they walk, but only crawl ; but they have a strong grasp 
with their feet, by which they cling to walls. Their bodies 
being flat they can enter a very narrow crevice ; and where 
they cannot pass on their bellies they will turn up edge- 
wise. 
The particular formation of the foot discriminates the 
swift from all the British Hirundines j and indeed from all 
other known birds, the Hirundo melbaj or great white- 
bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted; for it is so disposed 
as to carry omnes quatuor digitos anticos/' all its four toes 
forward ; besides, the least toe, which should be the back 
toe, consists of one bone alone, and the other three only of 
two apiece : a construction most rare and peculiar, but nicely 
adapted to the purposes in which their feet are employed. 
This, and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and 
under mandible, have induced a discerning naturalist ^ to 
suppose that this species might constitute a genus joer se.^ 
In London a party of swifts frequents the Tower, playing 
^ John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D. — G. W. 
2 The genus suggested by Scopoli has been adopted by modern 
zoologists, and has been made to include all the species of swifts : but 
the name which he gave to it has been superseded by that of Cypselus, 
applied to it by Illiger and adopted from Aristotle > which is considered 
as indicating the habit of hiding their nests in holes. 
The great white-bellied swift above referred to, an inhabitant of 
Central and Southern Em-ope, Western Asia, and Africa, is an occasional 
straggler to our shores. Since the days of Gilbert White a score of 
instances have been recorded of its occurrence in the British Islands. 
See the "Handbook of British Birds," p. 125.— Ed. 
