THE COMMON SWIFT. 
409 
described, so soon after their arrival, as to afford sufficient proof 
that the cry did not proceed from the “ males serenading their 
sitting hens,” as incubation had not then commenced.* Nay, 
from the time that it has ceased until that of the bird’s departure, 
the screaming is continued to the same degree as at any other 
period. But I cannot coincide in the opinion that “ this action 
and cry are the consequences of irritability excited by the highly 
electrical state of the atmosphere at such times.” This idea 
differing from my own, previous to the publication of the ad- 
mirable work in which it appeared, I gave some attention to the 
subject for two summers, to see how far my preconceived opinion was 
justified. In the years 1832 and 1833, from the 7th and 9th of 
May, the days on which the swifts first came under my observation 
about Belfast, until the 1st and 3rd of June (when I left home), 
they daily kept flying about in small parties, screaming loudly, in 
dull and gloomy, as well as in bright and cloudless weather. 
The following particular notices on this subject are abbreviated 
from my Journal : — 
May 24th, 1832. — For the last eight or ten days the swift’s scream has been 
daily heard ; and when present this evening at the meeeting of an Historic Debating 
Society, the swifts obtruded themselves on my attention by flying, “in small parties,” 
closely past the windows, screaming most furiously. Though amusing, to the orni- 
thologist, it must have been very annoying to the assembled company, to he “ sere- 
naded ” by their ill-timed scream, which not only jarred most discordantly with the 
“ eloquent music ” discoursed within, hut for the time being entirely drowned the 
voices of the speakers ; indeed almost seemed to be intended as a mockery of what 
was passing there. During these ten days the weather has been rather dark and 
cloudy ; the barometer remarkably stationary, and very high. With the exception 
of a few showers on one day, no rain has fallen. 
May 27th and June 3rd, 1832. — Weather remarkably fine and warm : sky almost 
cloudless. The screaming of swifts heard above every other sound, about the localities 
frequented by them. 
* In the last two years, — 1847 and 1848, — my attention was directed to the 
earliest swifts of the season which I saw at Belfast by their loud screams. The date 
was the 9th of May in both years. In the former year, they had been seen over that 
town by another person on the 7th of the month. On the 4th, they were observed 
between Newry and Portadown. I have often remarked what doubtless led White to 
conjecture that the cry of the swift is the serenade of the males to “ their sitting 
hens,” as, at the season of incubation, these birds (but of which sex I cannot say) 
may often be observed flying about in the neighbourhood of their nests, and heard 
screaming only “ when they come close to the walls or eaves.” 
