THE 0 RLE TON SWIFTS. 
9r 
THE ORLETON SWIFTS. 
(a letter to the right honble. the earl of selborne.) 
(Concluded from p. 69.) 
ND now,” to use the words of Gilbert White, “ if I 
should advance something new and peculiar with re- 
spect to them and different from all other birds, I 
might perhaps be credited” — especially as, since I 
first drew attention to it in a letter to “ Nature ” (October 27th, 
1887) other observers have noticed and reported it in the papers. 
“ The fact that I would advance is that ” the male swifts 
ascend to a great height after sunset, and stay away for a long 
time. 
Gilbert White says “ just before they retire, whole groups of 
them assemble high in the air, and squeak and shoot about with 
wonderful rapidity.” 
Here, about forty, as nearly as I can guess, every fine 
night gather above the church and slowly ascend, wheeling “in 
and out and round about,” and screaming loudly the whole time. 
When they have reached a great height they stop wheeling 
inter se, and point their heads all the same way, continuing to 
soar in w'ide circles until they are lost to sight. The females 
stay at home and attend to the house. I have good sight, and 
on a clear July evening at 9.15 I have seen these high-flyers 
like a little cloud, when they were so high that I could not dis- 
tinguish the individuals. If you have not kept your eyes on 
them it is most strange to hear the screaming overhead, and not 
to be able to see what is the cause of it in the deepening dusk. 
About the middle, of May they go up at 8.35, getting gradually 
later until the longest evenings, when they go up at 9.15 ; then 
they get earlier again until just before they leave, when they go 
up at 8.10. 
We had long known here of this curious habit of screaming 
high in the air at dusk, and my brother Cyril (now curate of 
Petersfield) used to say years ago that they roosted up there. I 
did not agree with this, believing that they came down again 
after we had gone in. The difficulty of finding time and oppor- 
tunity for watching the birds late in the evening caused the 
matter to be left undecided until 1887, when being both at home 
together, and the nights warm and fine, we determined to in- 
vestigate it. I need only give one instance of the way we did it. 
One night, having seen the swifts up at 9.10, I sat on a 
tombstone under the south eaves until 10.30. Two low-flying 
females were hawking for flies, but they went in before 9.20. 
Two also were out, but soon retired, on the north side of the 
church, where my father and brother kept watch alternatel}-. 
Not one of the high-flyers came back. Many bats came out 
from under the eaves, I could see the moths and beetles against 
