SWALLOWS. 
49 
elude -that it is by no means so active on the wing as 
others with a larger expansion, and consequently 
unable so adroitly to guide itself, and avoid danger ; 
which may account, at the same time, for its being 
more readily seized by the Swallows, and also for its 
being carried headlong into the eye, if the eye hap- 
pens to be in the line of its accidental course. Those 
who have experienced the annoyance of these minute 
intruders, will well remember the extreme pain felt, 
as soon as the eye closes upon its prisoner : this is 
occasioned, as the annexed figure will show, by the 
irritation produced, when the insect, as in the case of 
its larger representative on the gravel walk, on being 
caught, instantly darts up its tail, covered with similar 
sharp and fork-like appendages. 
STAPHYLINUS BRACHYPTERUS, MAGNIFIED. 
Our readers, on perusing the above narrative of 
the torpid state of the migratory Swallows, may 
have been surprised that spiders should be found in 
the mouth of a bird collecting its food on the wing ; 
but they will be still more so, in hearing that spiders 
form a very considerable part of the food of the Swift, 
which flies higher in search of insects than any other 
insect-feeding bird. The fact is, the air is abund- 
VOL. II. E 
