2S0 



AKTAMID^ 



next tree, and for about twenty minutes kept up a most beautiful song. Its notes were not very 

 loud, but had a great range, and harmonised well. They rear two broods in the season." 



The nest is a cup-shaped structure, externally formed of thin twigs and lined inside with 

 rootlets or grasses, and in some instances with horse-hair. An average one measures outwardly 

 four inches and a half in diameter, by two inches and three-quarters in depth, and the inner cup 

 two inches and a half in diameter by one inch and a half in depth. It is usually built in a 

 thick forked branch of a tree, or held in position by a projecting piece of bark on the side of a 

 tree, or hidden by a bunch of short leafy twigs growing on the side of a branch, at a height 

 varying from three or four to forty fest from the ground. The nest here figured was built in a 

 mistletoe, on a gum tree at Chatswood, and was taken by Mr. A. A. Johnston on the ist 

 December, 1899. At Roseville I found a nest containing four nearly fledged young on the 3rd 

 October, 1898. It was built in the fork of a Mclalcuaj, five feet from the .ground. The nests of 



this species may be found fairly 

 common between the months of 

 September and January. 



The eggs are usually three, 

 sometimes four, in number for 

 a sitting, oval or rounded oval 

 in form, the shell being close- 

 grained, smooth and slightly 

 lustrous. They vary in ground 

 colour from almost pure white 

 to, in rare instances, a creamy 

 white, and are spotted and 

 blotched with varying shades 

 of brown, black and grey, the 

 markings predominating in some 

 instances at the thicker end, 

 where they form a more or less 

 well-defined zone; others have 

 the markings more uniformly 

 distributed over the surface of 

 the shell. A set of three, taken 

 at Canterbury on the 4th Septem- 

 ber, 1893, measures: — Length 

 (A) o-g X 07 inches; (B) o-gi x 07 inches; (C) o-Sg x 071 inches. A set of four taken at 

 Chatswood on the 5th December, 1899, measures: — Length (.\) o-88 x o-68 inches; (B) 

 0-87 X 0-66 inches; (C) o-88 x 0-67 inches; (D) o-g x 07 inches. A set of three, taken by 

 the Rev. H. B. Atkinson, on the 13th November, i88g, at Circular Head, on the North-western 

 coast of Tasmania, measures : — Length (A) o-g x 0-67 inches; (B) 0-85 x 0-67 inches; (C) 

 0-87 X 0-65 inches. 



A nest of the Dusky Wood Swallow I found at Belmore on the 14th October, 1896, in 

 addition to two eggs of this species also contained an egg of the Pallid Cuckoo. 



Young birds are smoky-brown above and below, with ashy-white streaks to all the feathers, 

 broader and not so clearly defined on the under surface, which is also paler ; wings and tail as in 

 the adult, but some of the upper wing-coverts are centred with brown or brownish-white at their 

 tips, and the primaries narrowly edged with ashy-white around their tips. Wing 4-5 inches. 



September and the four following months constitute the usual breeding season of this species 

 in Eastern Australia. 



NEST AND EGGS Oh' DUSKY WUUU .SWALLOW. 



