THE COMMON SWIFT. 
411 
about twenty nests of the martin. When in the town of Bally- 
money, on the same day, I observed several swifts to fly under the 
thatch of a house similar to that described, while some inhabited 
nests of the martin appeared against it. On the 24th of June, 
1834, the swift was remarked to have similar nesting-places in 
Lisburn and Banbridge. In all the above-mentioned localities, 
these birds were flying about in groups, screaming violently, the 
weather being delightfully warm, and the sky “ purely, beauti- 
fully blue,” not a cloud being visible. Bor a week after the 
former date the weather continued very warm and dry. Spirited 
horses that I have ridden, have occasionally been startled by the 
loud scream of the swift, as it swept closely past. 
In Belfast, where houses such as those described are not to be 
met with, I have known the swift's nest to be placed under the 
window-sills of houses newly erected, to which the bird gained 
access by means of an aperture, about an inch in width, that the 
careless builder had neglected to close up. An ornithological 
friend has seen swifts fly under the eaves of low thatched cottages 
in the village of Magheralin (county Down), where they doubtless 
build. 
Two swifts' nests manually examined by my informant in the 
summer of 1839, were placed on the wall-top of a two-story 
thatched house, and were like a sparrow's nest in a similar situa- 
tion, but contained fewer feathers. In the one nest, were two 
eggs which had been long incubated, and therefore the full 
number ; in the other, were three young birds. Swifts for some 
years previously had built at this house, inside of which the com- 
mon swallow as regularly did so. From two nests in the same 
house, two and three eggs were severally taken, in 1848. 
Swifts, like martins, frequent the basaltic precipices of the 
north coast of Ireland, from the southern extremity of the range 
at the Cave hill near Belfast, to their northern termination above 
the sand-hills of Magilligan. Their being always present about 
them during their sojourn, indicate that they have dwellings in 
the crevices.* 
* White of Selborne mentions swifts “ breeding in the sides of a deep chalk-pit at 
