The Natural History of Selborne [77]
association of ideas, since that note never occurs but in the most lovely summer weather.
They never 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 British hirundines; and indeed from all other known birds, the hirundo melba, great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted; for it is so disposed as to carry 'omnes quatuor digitos anticos' 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 construction 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 per se. (* John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D.)
In London a party of swifts frequents 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 ring swala, form 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, as swallows do, since they never settle on the ground. Young ones, over-run with hippoboscae, are sometimes found, under their nests, fallen to the ground: the number of vermin rendering their abode insupportable any longer. They frequent in this village several abject cottages: yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely roofs: a good proof this that the same birds return to the same spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on the wing.
On the fifth of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest; but so strongly was she affected by natural storge (in Greek) for her brood, which she supposed to be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to be taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and placed on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as helpless as a new-born child. While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and their heads, too heavy for their necks to support, we could not but wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor; and perhaps, in their emigration must traverse vast continents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does nature advance small birds to their elikia (in Greek) or state of perfection; while the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious!
I am, etc.
Letter XXII To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Sept. 13, 1774.
Dear Sir,
By means of a straight cottage chimney I had an opportunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft; but my pleasure, in contemplating the address with which this feat was performed to a consideraable depth in the chimney, was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.* (* Tobit ii. 10.)
Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what times the
They never 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 British hirundines; and indeed from all other known birds, the hirundo melba, great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted; for it is so disposed as to carry 'omnes quatuor digitos anticos' 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 construction 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 per se. (* John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D.)
In London a party of swifts frequents 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 ring swala, form 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, as swallows do, since they never settle on the ground. Young ones, over-run with hippoboscae, are sometimes found, under their nests, fallen to the ground: the number of vermin rendering their abode insupportable any longer. They frequent in this village several abject cottages: yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely roofs: a good proof this that the same birds return to the same spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on the wing.
On the fifth of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest; but so strongly was she affected by natural storge (in Greek) for her brood, which she supposed to be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to be taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and placed on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as helpless as a new-born child. While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and their heads, too heavy for their necks to support, we could not but wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor; and perhaps, in their emigration must traverse vast continents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does nature advance small birds to their elikia (in Greek) or state of perfection; while the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious!
I am, etc.
Letter XXII To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Sept. 13, 1774.
Dear Sir,
By means of a straight cottage chimney I had an opportunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft; but my pleasure, in contemplating the address with which this feat was performed to a consideraable depth in the chimney, was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.* (* Tobit ii. 10.)
Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what times the