THE SWALLOWS. 
121 
flying round Sidmouth on November 4. Probably these later birds perish 
miserably when cold weather sets in. A pair of Swallows in the same year 
brought up four broods, of four or five birds each time, to our knowledge. 
What an enormous destruction of flies was required to feed these .young birds 
alone ! 
The Swift (Cypselus apus ), though a true Swallow to all intents and purposes, 
possesses characteristics of its own. Whereas our other Swallows have three toes 
in front on each foot and one behind, the Swift’s four toes are all directed for¬ 
wards. Its tarsi, too, are thickly feathered. Legs, indeed, it has none, in the strict 
sense of the word, and so all its life is spent in the air or under the dark tiles 
and roofing where it loves to nest and roost. It is eight inches long, but has a 
spread of wings seventeen inches, which render it the swiftest and most untiring in 
flight not only of the Swallows but of all birds. No approximation can be formed 
of its flight, its movements are so rapid ; but it has been estimated that it flies 
276 miles in an hour. It has sooty-brown plumage, with bills and claws of black, 
and a dirty white mark under its chin. He must have good eyes who can detect 
this, however, as the bird rushes screaming past him. The unearthly habits and 
powerful sweep of this bird give it the name of “ devilin ” in Nottinghamshire. It 
comes to us the latest of the tribe, seldom before the first week in May, and leaves 
the soonest, at the end of July. All these three months the bird spends in the 
air, beginning very early in the morning and continuing its unwearied flight until 
late in the twilight; now sweeping past men and houses low down, at other times 
at a vast height, wheeling in circles and then again with loud harsh screams seeking 
the open country. It seems to care less for the neighbourhood of water than do 
the Swallows proper. Its nest is composed of feathers and very light substances 
which it can catch in the air, for it never settles on the earth, and could not rise 
again were it to do so. The eggs are two, or sometimes more in number, pure 
white. We have seen a pair building in the pipe that ran from the roof down the 
clerestory of a church. The birds invariably entered at the top and tumbled down 
the pipe, so as to emerge as invariably at the bottom, thus tumbling down a 
distance of sixteen or twenty feet each time they visited the nest. To White belongs 
the merit of having most completely studied the whole of this bird’s habits, and we 
must once more refer to his “Selborne” for fuller particulars of its life. 
The Alpine Swift, which is greyish brown above and pure white on the under 
plumage, has been taken and seen a good many times in England and Ireland, 
but is in no sense a British bird. 
Q 
