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SWEYN 193 SWIFT having established himself in England, though without being crowned there. See Denmark and Ethelred II. SWIFT, the Hirundo apus of Linnaeus and Cypselus apus or inurariiis of mod- ern ornithologists. Though swifts are like swallows in many respects, their structure is almost entirely different, and some naturalists rather class them with the humming birds or the goat suckers. The swift has all four toes directed for- ward; it is larger than the swallow; its flight is more rapid and steady; and its scream is very different from the twit- tering of the swallow. It has the great- est powers of flight of any bird that visits Great Britain. Its weight is most disproportionately small to its extent of wing, the former being scarcely an ounce, the latter 18 inches, the length of the body being about 8 inches. Its color is a somber or sooty black, a whit- ish patch appearing beneath the chin. It builds in holes in the roofs of houses, in towers, or in hollow trees. It leaves Q-reat Britain in August, having arrived from Africa early in May. The C. melba or alpinus, a larger species with the lower parts dusky white, has its home in the mountainous parts of Cen- tral and Southern Europe. A common North American swift is the co-called chimney swallow (Chacetiira pelagica), which builds its nest in chimneys (see Swallow). The swifts or swiftlets of the genus Collocalia, which inhabit chiefly the islands of the Indian Ocean from the N. of Madagascar E., consti'uct the edible birds'-nests which are used by Chinese epicures in the making of soup. SWIFT, EBEN, an American military officer, born at Fort Chadbourne, Tex., in 1854. He was educated at Racine (Wis.) College, Washington University and Dickinson College, and graduated from the United States Military Aca- demy in 1876. In the same year he was commissioned a 2d lieutenant, and rising through the various grades became brig- adier-general in 1916 and major-general in 1917. He saw service in the Indian campaigns in Wyoming, Montana, Ne- braska, Idaho and Colorado; in Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands and at the Mexican border. His other assignments included service with the infantry and cavalry schools, the Gene- ral Service and Staff College, the Army War College and the Army service schools, of which latter he was com- mandant. Upon the entrance of the United States in the World War, he be- came commanding officer of Camp Gor- don, Atlanta, Ga., and later of the 82d Division, with which he served in France until February, 1918. From February to August, 1918, he was chief of the Ameri- can Military Mission and commander of the United States Forces in Italy, retir- ing upon reaching the age limit in Sep- tember, 1918. SWIFT, JONATHAN (1667-1745), Dean of St. Patrick's, was born in Dublin on Nov. 30, 1667, the posthumous son of Jonathan Swift, an Irish lawyer of Eng- lish parentage, by Abigail Erick of Lei- cester. He was educated at Kilkenny and Trinity College, Dublin, from which he graduated with difficulty. During this period he was supported by his uncles, but their generosity was either so limited or so ungracious that Swift felt little gratitude and developed a fierce desire for independence. For his mother he seems to have always had a genuine affection. On account of the disturbances at- tendant on the abdication of James II., Swift left Ireland, and after a period with his mother at Leicester, was taken into the family of Sir William Temple, ^^' JONATHAN SWIFT the statesman and essayist, as a kind of secretary, and proved himself extremely useful. In 1694 he took orders and re- ceived a living at Kilroot near Belfast, but after two years was recalled by Temple to prepare his letters and memoirs for publication. He employed his abundant leisure in hard reading, and wrote in 1697 his first important work, "The Battle of the Books," published in 1704. This was a satirical contribution to the famous quarrel of the ancients and moderns, which Temple had brought to England from France. Along with it appeared "The Tale of a Tub," a powerful satire upon the divisions of Christianity, full of effective ridicule of