. Britain's birds and their nests . arents for food. An absurd but ancient and widespread popular super-stition is expressed in the name Goat-Sucker.* Otherpopular names are Evejar, Puckeridge, Wheel-Bird(from the whirring note), Night-Hawk, * Dor-Hawk,Fern-Owl, and Churn-Owl. With regard to the lasttwo, we may say that the Nightjars are not without resem-blance to the Owls both in nocturnal habits and in generalappearance. Modern researches, moreover, have shown thatthere must be a real, if distant, relationship between thetwo groups. Family, CYPSELID^ (Swifts). THE SWIFT (Cypselus apus). Pla
. Britain's birds and their nests . arents for food. An absurd but ancient and widespread popular super-stition is expressed in the name Goat-Sucker.* Otherpopular names are Evejar, Puckeridge, Wheel-Bird(from the whirring note), Night-Hawk, * Dor-Hawk,Fern-Owl, and Churn-Owl. With regard to the lasttwo, we may say that the Nightjars are not without resem-blance to the Owls both in nocturnal habits and in generalappearance. Modern researches, moreover, have shown thatthere must be a real, if distant, relationship between thetwo groups. Family, CYPSELID^ (Swifts). THE SWIFT (Cypselus apus). Plate 64. Surely no name could be more appropriate than thatof Swift applied to the familiar British bird whichbears it! For sheer velocity of flight it and its nearallies must be absolutely imrivalled. We have neverseen any attempt at an accurate computation of its speed,and indeed the practical difficulties to be overcome arevery great; but some writers have not hesitated to hintat two hundred miles an hour, and from rough estimates. ^ Plate 64. S WI FT— Cypsehis a!pus. Length, 6-75 in. ; wing, 6-8 in. [Picari^ : CypseridcG.]z 206 BRITAINS BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS. 207 over small distances this does not seem to us to be greatlyexaggerated. Certainly it takes but a second or two forthe bird to sweep across a wide arc of sky visible fromsome low - lying point of observation, and that, too,although it may be flying many hundreds of feet aboveus, and cannot easily disappear from our view. Oftenthe Swifts fly at great heights, circling above their nesting-places on a summer evening, mere specks in the clear sky,at an altitude of a thousand feet or more above theground. They spend most of their time in the air,wheeling and circling for hours at a great height, or, ata lower level, dashing past the house-tops in screamingbands. No birds have such a combination of speed andduration of flight, and to the Swifts we must surelyaward the palm as the highest type of aerial animal, con-sidered
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbirdsne, bookyear1910
