Animal Life in Field and Garden

by Jean-Henri Fabre

“ ‘Swifts have to be on the wing a great part of the time. They never voluntarily alight on the ground, and if by some accident they fall to earth they cannot rise again into the air without extreme difficulty, by dragging themselves up on to a little mound or by climbing with beak and claws upon a stone from which they can spread their long wings. If the ground is quite level they either lie prone on the stomach or sway from side to side with a balancing motion, or they manage to struggle forward a little by beating the earth with their wings. After repeated efforts they sometimes succeed in flying off. The earth, therefore, is to them a great danger that must be avoided with the utmost care. Any state between swift motion and absolute rest is hardly possible with them. Violent exercise in the [[234]]air and perfect quiet in their place of retreat—these two, as a rule, make up their existence. The only variation known to them is to hang on to some wall near their hole and then drag themselves into the nest by clambering along with the help of beak and any chance support that they can find. Usually they enter their retreat in full flight. After passing and repassing its entrance more than a hundred times, all at once they dart in so quickly that they are lost to sight before you know whither they are gone. You feel almost inclined to believe they have vanished into thin air.’

“Their nest is nearly always placed in a deep hole in the wall and at a great height. It is made of hemp threads, little wisps of tow, bits of straw, feathers, rags, and cotton-like down from poplar and willow catkins. These materials are stuck together with the viscous saliva that constantly oozes from the swift’s throat and serves as glue to entangle captured insects. The bird spreads it over the nest and thoroughly moistens the successive layers. In drying this saliva hardens and takes on the shiny appearance of gum, giving consistency and even elasticity to the whole structure. If you squeeze the nest between your two hands it will shrink up without breaking, and when the pressure is removed it will resume its former shape.

“The swift, then, furnishes its own adhesive cement, but whence does it obtain the other materials it needs, such as tow, rags, straw, and feathers? Of course it is not so foolish as to go and pick them up [[235]]from the ground, where it might find them as other birds do; for if it touched the ground it would certainly come to grief. Therefore it resorts to cunning. As it reaches us rather late in the season, it takes advantage of such holes as it finds already abandoned by the sparrows, and there it finds abundant materials which it uses in its own way by sticking them together with its glue. If the sparrows have not yet broken up housekeeping, it boldly invades their nests, steals bits of flock and tufts of hair, straw, and feathers, a little from one and a little from another, and makes with these its own nest in another hole in the same wall. The female lays from two to four eggs, pure white and rather elongated. Swifts seldom stay more than three months with us. Arriving after the swallows early in May, they leave at the end of July.

“The white-breasted swift differs from the bird I have just described in being larger and having a white breast and stomach. It is found in the region of the Alps and of the Pyrenees and frequents the Mediterranean shores, especially where the waves beat against high, steep cliffs. Middle and northern Europe are not visited by this bird. Its flight is even swifter than that of its black cousin, and it flies habitually at a great height, descending only when bad weather threatens. It builds its nest at the summit of high, steep rocks, making it of straw and moss stuck together with the glue from its own throat.

“The night-jar closely resembles the swift, having, like that bird, a short beak which is very broad [[236]]at the base and opens very wide, while from the gullet comes a sticky saliva for holding fast any insects that are caught. Its size is about that of the thrush; its plumage is light, soft, and shaded with gray and brown; its eyes are large and prominent and very sensitive to light; the base of its beak bristles with long, stiff hairs; and its legs are short, but at the same time not ill adapted to walking.

Night-jar

“As indicated by the sensitiveness of its eyes, which cannot endure the full light of day, and by the softness and lightness and gray color of its plumage, which resembles that of the hornless owl, the night-jar is a twilight bird: it is the swift of the evening, flying and hunting only when the sun is near setting. By the fading light of a summer evening it may be seen scanning the ground in low flight to and fro over its surface, after the manner of the swallow. It flies with mouth wide open, so that the air in striking the throat produces a low and continuous humming like that of a spinning-wheel.”

“And is it from that humming sound that it gets its name of night-jar?” asked Jules.

“Precisely. But it does not make this humming sound for the mere love of hearing it; its object is to snap up the twilight-flying insects as it passes [[237]]with distended beak. Big beetles sporting in the evening air, June-bugs, and other plump winged creatures disappear in the viscous gullet, while small butterflies, moths, gnats, and mosquitoes become entangled by the dozen in the fatal glue. If the game is large, the bird swallows it at once, whole and still alive; if small, it waits until it has caught a certain number and then swallows them all in one mouthful.”