THE HABIT OF SWIFTS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Your readers may be interested to hear of a very wonderful experience I had a few weeks ago in Montreux, Switzerland. A flock of swifts arrived from Africa and kept flying round our hotel. One day, two of them had the most deadly fight on the balcony, so much so that my husband ought and separated them, though with great difficulty. One flow away and the other dropped into a pool of water, as if it were in a dying condition.
We picked it up and brought it to the little balcony outside our window, as it was not wet there. In some hours, as it seemed so bad, I lifted it inside and with a medicine dropper gave it some milk, which it drank eagerly every time I put a drop on its bill. The little bird never pecked me at all but seemed grateful. I replaced it on the balcony and in a while it struggled to the edge, dropped over and flew away. To my amazement, in some hours it came again, so I lifted it in, fed it as before, and put it out again. It again struggled to the edge, dropped over and flew away.
Thinking that was the last of it, imagine my astonishment when next day it came again on a very wet day. The poor little thing dropped exhausted into a pool of water and lay there till I lifted it once more inside. It was drenched through, so I dried it as best I could, fed and laid it, after wrapping it in flannel, on a lukewarm hot-water bag. There it lay peaceably and went to sleep. In the evening I told a friend in the hotel the story ; he asked eagerly to see it, so I brought it down, wrapped still in flannel. He took it asleep to his room, saying he would examine it in the morning. He found that during the fight a piece of skin had been torn, wound round one foot, buckling up its claws, so that it could hardly move. He freed the foot, took the bird to the window, and it flew away, cured.
But I still look out of my window, hoping to see my little patient again.--I am, Sir, &c., S. S. DAVIDSON. Hotel Dent du Midi, Clarens-Montreux, Suisse.
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