NESTS A.VD ECGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. jfij, 



I liavc a pleasant recollection of a family of tlicso Wootl Swallows 

 which I saw in the Big Scrub of Now South Wales. I wa.s out one 

 iiiorniiig early near tlie nunitli of the Hrunswick River, where was a 

 brood of three young jjerched on a branch overhanging the stream. How 

 attentive were the parent birds, every moment diving gi'acefuUy down 

 and hawking along the river's bank for food, each time returning ,witli 

 a captured insect and transferring it to the extended gajx; of one or 

 other of the youngsters as they sat closely side by side on a naked twig' 



Frr(juently. fledged young from different clutches have the habit 

 of congregating. As many as fifteen or sixteen, about the same age, 

 may be seen perched side by side on a dead branch with the old birds 

 in flying attendance. 



^fr Thos. R. McDougall, while camped at the Black Ridge, near 

 Clermont, Queensland, thoughtfully sent me the following note n the 

 White-rumped Wood Swallow. He says : " I noticed a pair this morning 

 (30th October, 189,o), building a nest in the end of a hollow limb, about 

 -ixtv or seventy feet from the ground. When I say a hollow limb T 

 may mislead you, but as well as I could tell it was a shallow hole when' 

 the limb had been snapped off by the wind some considerable time ago.'' 



Professor Moselev, in his " Notos by a Naturalist, " when at Cape York, 

 September. 1874, shot several of these gi-acoful Wood .Swallows, which 

 had the bases of their bills clogged with pollen from the flowei-s on which 

 no doubt they had been searching for insects. The profe,ssor suggests 

 tlx'v must be like some Humming Birds which act a,s fertilizers, can7ing 

 polliMi from one flower to another. 



The breeding season of the Wliitc-i-umped Wood Swallow may be said 

 to commence in Augu.st or September and continue to the end of the 

 year. A pair was noticed feeding yoiuig near the Fitzroy River (North- 

 west), about the middle of Februaiy. 



384. — Anx.vMus scPF.rsni.iosrs, Gould. — (70) 

 WHITE-BROWED WOOD SWALLOW. 



Figure.— GouXA : Birds of Australia, fol., vol. ii., pi. 32. 



Rfferencc. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. xiii., p. i^. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs.—OoM\A: Birds of .Australia (1848); 



also Handbook, vol. i., p. 153 (1865); North: .\ustn. .\lus. 



Cat., p. 48 (1S89). 



Geogrnphiral Dixfrihufion.—Qucens\nu(]. New South Wales, Victoria 

 and South and West Australia. 



Jfest. — Open, somewhat frail and shallow ; constructed of fine twigs 

 or dark, dead flowering stalks of plants, &c., lined with very fine rootlets, 

 sometimes with gra.ss, yellowish in colour compared wdth the outside 

 material, and situated, as if at random, anywhere on bush or tree, but 

 usually in a forked branch or on a projecting piece of bark or fractured 

 limb. Occasionally placed in a deserted nest of a Magjiie Lark 



