Throat, forehead, and ear-coverts yellow; over the forehead a black band; lore, moustache, and gorget black; upper parts reddish brown; breast and flanks yellowish white; abdomen white. Length nearly seven inches. Eggs greyish white, spotted with pale blue and brown.
The Shore Lark, like the last, is a very rare visitor of Britain, and appears to be equally uncommon In France. A few have been shot in Norfolk, and in the high latitudes both of the Old and New Worlds it is a common resident on the rocky coasts. It builds its nest on the ground, and shares in the great characteristic of the family, that, namely, of soaring and singing simultaneously. In colouring, it is strongly marked by its black gorget and crest.
ORDER PICARIÆ
FAMILY CYPSELIDÆ
THE SWIFT
CÝPSELUS ÁPUS
General plumage sooty brown; chin greyish white; tarsi feathered; bill feet, and claws, shining black. Length eight inches; width seventeen inches. Eggs pure white.
The Swift is, perhaps, the strongest and swiftest, not merely of the Swallow tribe, but of all birds; hence a voyage from Southern Africa[16] to England is performed without overtaxing its strength. It stands in need of no rest after this prodigious flight, but immediately on its arrival starts with a right good will on its pursuit of food, as if its journey had been but a pleasant course of training for its daily vocation. With respect to temperature, however, its powers of endurance are limited; it never proceeds far northwards, and occasionally even suffers from unseasonably severe weather in the temperate climates where it fixes its summer residence. Mr. F. Smith, of the British Museum, related in the Zoologist,[17] that, at Deal, on the eighth of July, 1856, after a mild but wet day, the temperature suddenly fell till it became disagreeably cold. The Swifts were sensibly affected by the atmospheric change; they flew unsteadily, fluttered against the walls of the houses, and some even flew into open windows. 'Whilst observing these occurrences', he says, 'a girl came to the door to ask me if I wanted to buy a bat; she had heard, she told me, that I bought all kinds of bugs, and her mother thought I might want a bat. On her producing it, I was astonished to find it was a poor benumbed Swift. The girl told me they were dropping down in the streets, and the boys were killing all the bats; the church, she said, was covered with them. Off I started to witness this strange sight and slaughter. True enough; the children were charging them everywhere, and on arriving at the church in Lower Street I was astonished to see the poor birds hanging in clusters from the eaves and cornices; some clusters were at least two feet in length, and, at intervals, benumbed individuals dropped from the outside of the clusters. Many hundreds of the poor birds fell victims to the ruthless ignorance of the children.' Being so susceptible of cold, the Swift does not visit us until summer may be considered to have completely set in. In the south it is generally seen towards the end of April, but it generally brings up the rear of the migratory birds by making its first appearance in the first or second week in May, in the north.
Early in August it makes itself, for a few days, more than ever conspicuous by its wheeling flights around the buildings which contain its nest, and then suddenly disappears. At this period, too, its note is more frequently heard than during any other part of its visit, and in this respect it is peculiar. As a general rule, birds cease their song partially, if not entirely, when their eggs are hatched. The new care of providing for the wants of a brood occupies their time too much to allow leisure for musical performance, so that with the exception of their call-notes, and their cries of alarm or defiance, they are for a season mute. An early riser, and late in retiring to roost, the Swift is always on the wing. Thus, whether hunting on his own account or on behalf of his mate and nestlings, his employment is unvaried, and the same amount of time is always at his disposal for exercising his vocal powers. These are not great; he has no roundelay; he neither warbles nor carols; he does not even twitter. His whole melody is a scream, unmusical but most joyous; a squeak would be a better name, but that, instead of conveying a notion that it results from pain, it is full of rollicking delight. Some compare it to the noise made by the sharpening of a saw; to me it seems such an expression of pent-up joy as little children would make if unexpectedly released from school, furnished with wings, and flung up into the air for a game of hide-and-seek among the clouds. Such soarings aloft, such chasings round the pinnacles of the church-tower and the gables of the farmhouses, no wonder that they cannot contain themselves for joy. Every day brings its picnic or village feast, with no weariness or depression on the morrow.
The nest of the Swift is constructed of any scraps that the bird may chance to find floating in the air, or brought to it by the wind, for it literally never perches on the ground, whence it rises with difficulty. These are rudely pressed together in any convenient aperture or moulding in a building, and cemented together by some glutinous secretion from the bird's mouth. Two eggs are laid, and the young, as a matter of necessity, remain in the nest until quite fledged.