Abstract
ON June 19, and again on June 21 last, in the evening, I watched a vast concourse of swifts flying over this town. They slowly soared upwards, shrieking and striking at each other, and at last went so far up in the sky as to look like a cloud of black gnats. I watched them till dusk, when their faint cries were still audible, and when these had died away in the distance I waited long for the birds to descend, but they did not, probably because they were old birds which had been sitting all day, and were glad of an opportunity to stretch their long wings in a few hours' flight. No great height would necessarily be attained by the birds during the short midsummer nights. I noticed on several subsequent evenings that at least some of the swifts of the town did not stay up till dusk; but I am not the less positive that on June 19 and 21 they spent the night in the sky.
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WITCHELL, C. Swifts. Nature 37, 79 (1887). https://doi.org/10.1038/037079c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/037079c0
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