Swifts, or "long-wings," as they are equally well-named in Cheshire, usually find their food at some height in the air, but one day in the beginning of July (1899) I noticed a number of swifts, with a great many swallows and sand-martins, skimming the surface of a patch of clover which had been left standing in a field near the garden. I did not discover what it was, but the attraction must have been something unusual, for the number of birds passing and re-passing in the very small space was so extraordinary that it was really difficult to understand how they could avoid collision. All were concentrated in the one spot, and never seemed to go beyond it for more than a couple of yards. In 1896 there were swifts about all August, and I saw a pair on October 19th. I was told by a friend who was at Brighton in June, 1899, that whenever the band played on the sea front four swifts would appear and fly round and round the bandstand. She never noticed them there, she said, when the band was not playing, although it was her favourite seat at all times of the day. Nightjars are not uncommon on "mosses" in Lancashire, only a mile or so away, and in Cheshire on the Carrington side of Warburton, but they are less frequent just about here. One year, however (1902), a pair evidently had made their nest in the rough tussocky ground which at that time covered the bed of the old river. From the middle of June to the beginning of July we were treated every evening to the full programme of their entertainment, both vocal and acrobatic. Several times one heard little snatches of the "song," even in the middle of the day in fine, hot weather, but nine p.m., sometimes a little earlier, was the usual time for beginning. The whirring would go on for an hour at a time, with hardly any cessation, but often varying in tone and volume, now swelling out louder and then sinking again. We often saw the two birds playing about together in the air, one or other of them making what is described as a "whipthong" noise and smiting its wings together like a pigeon. Sometimes when they first settled again after a flight, instead of the loud whirring there would be every now and then a soft, liquid, bubbling sound. A favourite resting-place was the bare bough of a Scotch fir, and here as it lay lengthways and perfectly still the bird looked so like part of the branch itself that I couldn't persuade a friend who was with me that it was a bird until he actually saw it fly away. After July 4th we heard no more of them, and for a day or two before that the whirring was much more interrupted, in shorter spells, and varied more in intensity and clearness than usual.