SWIFTS. 
37 
Common Swift. 
■five or six o’clock, and then recommence the chase until night-time; sometimes, on 
warm nights, flying till as late as nine o’clock; and even during the night their 
cries are loud enough to inconvenience persons living in the neighbourhood. Their 
nests are placed in all kinds of situations in the cathedral, in holes, spouts, or on 
the arches in the interior; while some of the birds, probably driven away by the 
inhabitants of the tower, have taken up their abode in a house in one of the most 
frequented streets of the town. When once on the ground, these swifts, like their 
congeners, are unable to rise, their long wings and short feet rendering it impos¬ 
sible for them to mount in the air again, though they are able to cling to the rough 
surfaces of rocks or stones. From this disability the swifts place their nests at a 
higher level than the point of exit, so that they are able to fall at once into mid¬ 
air. For the same reason the materials for the nest are collected from any place 
except the ground. These consist of hair, wool, dead leaves, etc., and especially 
fragments of paper, the latter being supplied to the birds by the keeper of the 
tower, who throws them into the air, when the} T are seized by the swifts, and 
carried off to their nests. All the materials are cemented with the birds’ saliva to 
form the nest; and the eggs, although usually two, may be three in number. 
One of the latest of the summer visitors to Europe, this species, 
(M. opus), which is figured on the left side of the illustration on 
p. 36, is almost entirely black in colour, the only exception being the white throat. 
In length it measures about 7 inches. Wintering in South Africa and Madagascar, 
the common swift is represented in the Mediterranean regions by the pale swift 
(M. murinus), which accompanies it in winter to the Cape. Much that has been 
written concerning the Alpine swift will apply to the present species; the nesting- 
habits of both being similar. The flight of the common swift is, however, some¬ 
what less rapid than that of its Alpine cousin, although far swifter than that of 
any other bird frequenting the British Isles. Indeed the manner in which a swift 
twists and turns in the air is often suggestive of the flight of a bat rather than 
that of a bird. 
Differing from the true swifts of the Old World by its feathered 
toes, soft plumage, and nearly square tail, the pied swift (Aeronautes 
melanoleucas), which ranges from the South-Western United States to Guatemala, 
constitutes a genus by itself. Writing of its habits, Dr. Shufeldt observes: 
“ On the Chugwater Creek, Wyoming, we passed some very high and imposing 
chalk cliffs which constitute the more striking and prominent features of the 
landscape, as the country about them is low and unbroken, being quite 
prairie-like in character. The head of one of these large chalk-bluffs, as it 
stood out against the clear blue sky and far above me, actually looked, with the 
cloud of wliite-tliroated swifts swarming about it, like some great beehive from 
which the inhabitants had been suddenly aroused. These birds were far above the 
range of my fowling-piece, though one, now and then, dipped down with the most 
inconceivable velocity and in a graceful curve over my head, as if to obtain a 
better view of me. A snap-shot brought down one of these more accommodating 
individuals, whose curiosity cost his life, and gave me not only a beautiful specimen, 
but the opportunity to examine in the flesh, for the first time, one of the then 
rarest birds in American collections. During the past eight years I have only 
Pied Swift. 
