This is one of the most owl-like of the Night-jars.
Photo by J. T. Newman] [Berkhamsted.
SWIFT.
A common British bird during the summer months.
The swift chooses for its nesting-place the eaves of houses and holes in church towers, and occasionally a crevice in the face of a quarry. The nest is formed of bits of straw, dry grass, and a few feathers, glued together by a secretion of the salivary glands into a compact crust; in this the bird deposits from two to four white eggs. The young, which are hatched naked and blind, never develop down-feathers, but soon become more or less imperfectly clothed in a mass of tiny spines, representing the budding feathers; these give the bird somewhat the appearance of a young hedgehog.
In adaptation to its remarkable powers of flight, the wing has undergone considerable modification in form, so that it differs from that of all other birds. On the other hand, the legs, being so little required, have diminished considerably, and are remarkable for their smallness—a fact which hampers the bird considerably, should it happen to alight on level ground, for, owing to the great length of the wings, it can arise only with considerable difficulty.
Nearly allied to the common swift is Salvin's Swift, remarkable on account of its nest, which has been described by Dr. Sharpe as the most wonderful in the world. About 2 feet long and 6 inches in diameter, it looks rather like the sleeve of an old coat than a nest. It is made entirely of the downy seeds of plants, which, floating through the air after the fashion of such seeds, are caught by the birds when on the wing, and, partly felted and partly glued by the salivary secretion, are woven slowly into the characteristic woolly domicile. The site and manner of fixation of the nest are scarcely less wonderful, for it is suspended from the flat surface of some projecting piece of rock on the face of a cliff, and is thus almost inaccessible; yet, as if to make assurance doubly sure, two entrances are made, one at the bottom, which is really blind, and one at the top, near its foundation, if we may call it so, which leads into the nursery.
Photo by A. S. Rudland & Sons.