208 
NATURAL HISTORY 
and feeding over the river just below the bridge : others 
haunt some of the churches of the Borough next the fields ; 
but do not venture, like the house martin, into the close 
crowded part of the town. 
The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on 
this swallow, calling it ring-swala, from the perpetual rings 
or circles that it takes round the scene of its nidification. 
Swifts feed on Coleoptera, or small beetles with hard 
cases over their wings, as well as on the softer insects ; 
but it does not appear how they can procure gravel^ to 
grind their food, as swallows do, since they never settle on 
the ground. Young ones, overrun with Hippohoscce, are 
sometimes found, under their nests, fallen to the grotind ; 
the number of vermin rendering their abode insupportable 
any longer. They frequent in this village several abject 
cottages ; yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely 
roofs : a good proof this that the same birds return to the 
same spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under 
these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch 
them on the wing. 
On the 5th of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof 
over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest ; but so 
strongly was she affected by natural a-Topyvi for her brood, 
which she supposed to be in danger, that, regardless of her 
own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, 
permitting herself to be taken in hand. The squab 
young we brought down and placed on the grass-plot, 
where they tumbled about, and were as helpless as a new- 
born child. While we contemplated their naked bodies, 
their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and their heads, 
too heavy for their necks to support, we could not but 
wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings iu a 
little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through 
the air almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor ; 
* Very few of the soft-billed birds eat gravel, and we are inclined to 
think that the particles of grit found in the stomachs of swallows have 
found their way there accidentally whilst the birds have been collecting 
mud for their nests. — Ed. 
