- Hirundo Riparia.
- Hirondelle de Rivage. F.
- Rhein-schwalbe, (Rhine-Swallow,)—ufer-schwalbe, (Shore-Swallow,)—erd-schwalbe, (Earth-Swallow). T.
- Topino, (The mouse-color.)—Rondine de riva. I. Cotyle Riparia. G. Hirundo Riparia. Y.
- Bank-Martin. B.
The Italian name, 'Topino,' is a good familiar one, the bird being scarcely larger than a mouse, and "the head, neck, breast, and back of a mouse-color." (B.) It is the smallest of the Swallow tribe, and shortest of wing; accordingly, I find Spallanzani's experiment on the rate of swallow-flight was, for greater certainty and severity, made with this apparently feeblest of its kind:—a marked Topino, brought from its nest at Pavia to Milan, (fifteen miles,) flew back to Pavia in thirteen minutes. I imagine a Swift would at least have doubled this rate of flight, and that we may safely take a hundred miles an hour as an average of swallow-speed. This, however, is less by three-fifths than Michelet's estimate. See above, Lecture II., § 48.
I have substituted 'bank' for 'sand' in the English name, since all the six quoted authorities give it this epithet in Latin or French, and Bewick in English. Also, it may be well thus to distinguish it from birds of the sea-shore.
V.
145. HIRUNDO SAGITTA. SWIFT.
- Hirundo Apus. L.
- Martinet Noir. F.
- Geyr-schwalbe. (Vulture-Swallow.) T.
- Rondone. (Plural, Rondini.) I.
- Cypselus Apus. G. and Y.
- Swift, Black Martin, or Deviling. B.
I think it will be often well to admit the license of using a substantive for epithet, (as one says rock-bird or sea-bird, and not 'rocky,' or 'marine,') in Latin as well as in English. We thus greatly increase our power, and assist the brevity of nomenclature; and we gain the convenience of using the second term by itself, when we wish to do so, more naturally. Thus, one may shortly speak of 'The Sagitta' (when one is on a scientific point where 'Swift' would be indecorous!) more easily than one could speak of 'The Stridula,' or 'The Velox,' if we gave the bird either of those epithets. I think this of Sagitta is the most descriptive one could well find; only the reader is always to recollect that arrow-birds must be more heavy in the head or shaft than arrow-weapons, and fly more in the manner of rifle-shot than bow-shot. See Lecture II., §§ 46, 67, 71, in which last paragraph, however, I have to correct the careless statement, that in the sailing flight, without stroke, of the larger falcons, their weight ever acts like the string of a kite. Their weight acts simply as the weight of a kite acts, and no otherwise. (Compare § 65.) The impulsive force in sailing can be given only by the tail feathers, like that of a darting trout by the tail fin. I do not think any excuse necessary for my rejection of the name which seems most to have established itself lately, 'Cypselus Apus,' 'Footless Capsule.' It is not footless, and there is no sense in calling a bird a capsule because it lives in a hole, (which the Swift does not.) The Greeks had a double idea in the word, which it is not the least necessary to keep; and Aristotle's cypselus is not the swift, but the bank-martlet—"they bring up their young in cells made out of clay, long in the entrance." The swift being precisely the one of the Hirundines which does not make its nest of clay, but of miscellaneous straws, threads, and shreds of any adaptable rubbish, which it can snatch from the ground as it stoops on the wing,[26] ] or pilfer from any half-ruined nests of other birds.
'Cotyle' is only a synonym for Cypselus, enabling ornithologists to become farther unintelligible. We will be troubled no more either with cotyles or capsules, but recollect simply that Hirundo, χελιδων [Greek: chelidôn], swallow, schwalbe, and hirondelle, are in each language the sufficing single words for the entire Hirundine race.
VI.
146. HIRUNDO ALPINA. ALPINE SWIFT.