INSECT-DESTROYING BIRDS. 141 



CHAPTER LXIV 



THE WHITE-RUMPED WOOD SWALLOW. 



{^Artamus leucogasler, Val.) 



This bird, although one of the best as a destroyer of 

 insects, is unfortunately somewhat rare in most places of 

 Victoria, but in some of the Murray districts it is fairly 

 common. The late Mr. Gould, in his magnificent work 

 on the birds of Australia, says of this species — " That 

 on the Rivers Mokai and Namoi, situated to the northward 

 of Liverpool Plains, New South Wales, he found it 

 breeding among the large-flooded gum trees bordering 

 the rivers, and remarks that the breeding season in the 

 localities commences in September and continues until 

 January, during which period at least two broods are 

 reared. In the Christmas week of 1839, at which times 

 I was on the plains of the interior, in the direction of 

 Namoi, the young progeny of the second brood were 

 perched in pairs or threes together on a dead twig near 

 their nest. They were constantly visited and fed by the 

 adults, who were hawking about for insects in great 

 numbers, some performing their evolutions above the 

 tops and among the branches of the trees, while others 

 were sweeping over the open plain with great rapidity of 

 ilight, making in their progress through the air the most 

 rapid and abrupt turns ; at one moment rising to a con- 

 siderable altitude and the next descending to within a few 

 feet of the ground, as the insects of which they were in 

 pursuit arrested their attention. In the branches, the 

 flight of this bird is more soaring and of a much shorter 

 duration, particularly when hawking in the open glades, 

 which frequently teem with insect life. When flying 



