-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., Sec. 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., Sec.Sec. 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 w