In hot
mornings several, getting together in little parties, dash round the
steeples and churches, squeaking as they go in a very clamorous
manner; these, by nice observers, are supposed to be males,
serenading their sitting hens; and not without reason, since they
seldom squeak till they come close to the walls or eaves, and since
those within utter at the same time a little inward note of
complacency.
When the hen has sat hard all day, she rushes forth just as it is
almost dark, and stretches and relieves her weary limbs, and
snatches a scanty meal for a few minutes, and then returns to her
duty of incubation. Swifts, when wantonly and cruelly shot while
they have young, discover a little lump of insects in their mouths,
which they pouch and hold under their tongue. In general they feed
in a much higher district than the other species; a proof that gnats
and other insects do also abound to a considerable height in the air:
they also range to vast distances; since locomotion is no labour to
them, who are endowed with such wonderful powers of wing.
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