SWIFT 111 
CYPSELUS APUS (Linn.). SWIFT. 
This is rather a scarce species in Man, yet it has long 
been known as a visitant to the island, for Townley records 
seeing six or seven Swifts on 14th May 1789. 
The earliest date on which I have noted its occurrence 
is 28th April (1884). Mr. Kermode gives 3rd May, and 
the middle of the month is sometimes attained without my 
observing a specimen. Mr. Kermode notes it in the last 
week in October, an unusually late date. 
At Douglas the churches of St. Thomas and St. George 
house a few pairs, and since the building of the Wesleyan 
church at Rosemount, a small number, unmindful of the 
immemorial hospitality afforded by the Established church, 
have settled there also. At Peel some nest in the decay- 
ing walls of the ancient fortress, where years ago Mr. 
Graves saw one taken from a hole in the rampart surround- 
ing the islet. (Owing to repairs the birds have ceased to 
nest in this spot, but doubtless still do so elsewhere in the 
ruins.) At Castletown a very few pairs used to nest in 
the tall building once used as a barracks. In 1903, how- 
ever, this station appeared to be deserted, though I twice 
noticed a few birds in the neighbourhood of the town, 
and it was not occupied in 1904, a migratory party only 
appearing in the late summer. Occasionally a flock or a 
few stragglers appear thus on migration; so on 28th June 
1901, a warm hazy afternoon, some fifty to a hundred, the 
largest assemblage I have ever seen on the island, appeared 
over Scarlett Point; and I have noticed them, but usually 
at what seemed more legitimate dates for migration, at 
Port Soderick, Laxey, and elsewhere, where they do not 
breed, A somewhat parallel date to the last, however, is 
