162 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh screaming 
note ; yet there are ears to which it is not displeasing, from an 
agreeable association of ideas, since that note never occurs but 
in the most lovely summer weather. 
They never can settle on the ground but through accident ; 
and when down, can hardly rise, on account of the shortness 
of their legs and the length of their wings; neither can they 
walk, but only crawl; but they have a strong grasp with their 
feet, by which they cling to walls. Their bodies being flat, 
they can enter a very narrow crevice; and where they cannot 
pass on their bellies they will turn up edgewise. 
The particular formation of the foot discriminates the swift 
from all the British AWirundines; and indeed from all other 
known birds, the great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar excepted ; 
for it is so disposed as to carry all its four toes forward ; besides, 
the least toe, which should be the back toe, consists of one 
bone alone, and the other three only of two apiece,—a con- 
struction most rare and peculiar, but nicely adapted to the 
purposes in which their feet are employed. This and some 
peculiarities attending the nostrils and under mandible, have 
induced a discerning naturalist’ to suppose that this species 
might constitute a genus fer se. 
In London a party of swifts frequent the Tower, playing 
and feeding over the river just below the bridge; others haunt 
some of the churches of the Borough, next the fields, but do 
not venture, like the house-martin, into the close crowded part 
of the town. 
The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this 
swallow, calling it 7img swala, from the perpetual rings or 
circles that it takes round the scene of its nidification. 
Swifts feed on Coleoptera, or small beetles with hard cases 
over their wings, as well as on the softer insects; but it does 
not appear how they can procure gravel to grind their food, 
1 John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D.— W. 
