eight acts simply as the _weight_ of a kite
acts, and no otherwise. (Compare Sec. 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.

[26] "I have in different times and places opened ten or twelve
swifts' nests; in all of them I found the same materials, and
these consisting of a great variety of substances--stalks of
corn, dry grass, moss, hemp, bits of cord, threads of silk and
linen, the tip of an ermine's tail, small shreds of gauze, of
muslin and other light stuffs, the feathers of domestic birds,
_charcoal_,--in short, whatever they can find in the sweepings of
towns."--Buffon.

Belon asserts (Buffon does not venture to guarantee the
assertion), that "they will descry a fly at the distance of a
quarter of a league"!

'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, [Greek: chelidon],
swallow, schwalbe, and hirondelle, are in each language the sufficing
single words for the entire Hirundine race.

VI.

146. HIRUNDO ALPINA. ALPINE SWIFT.

Hirundo Melba. L.
Le grand Martinet a Ventre Blanc. F.
Cypselus Melba. G.
Cypselus Alpinus. Y.
Alpine Swift,--White-bellied Swift. Y.
Not in Bewick.

I cannot find its German name. The Italians compare it with the
sea-swallow, which is a gull. What 'Melba' means, or ever meant, I have
no conception.

The bird is the noblest of all the swallow tribe--nearly as large as a
hawk, and lives high in air, noth