BIRDS OF OUR BUSH 



they appear in greater numbers than in others, probably 

 owing to a shortage of the food supply further north. The 

 White-browed species is gregarious, that is, its members 

 always travel and hunt in flocks. At nesting time, even, 

 the flock does not break up entirely, although the nests are 

 built far enough apart to ensure each nesting pair a dis- 

 tinct territory of its own. 



It is quite evident that a colony of Summer Birds will 

 return to the same locality year after year. On this account 

 we make it an annual practice, no matter what other 

 urgent business is afoot, to pay at least one visit to a pic- 

 turesque little spot known to us as the "Wood Swallow 

 Paddock." It is situated in the Greensborough district, 

 and not more than twelve miles away from the heart of the 

 city. Its grassy area is intersected by two small gullies 

 forming a V, and it is covered with a six-foot growth of 

 native and introduced bushes — a very quiet and undis- 

 turbed spot. The white skeletons of ring-barked gum- 

 trees of other days, dotted at intervals, complete that 

 sense of solitude which the naturalist holds so dear. 



Here, within an area of five or six acres, one is sure to 

 find, a few weeks before Christmas, upwards of a dozen 

 families busy with their nestlings. The anxiety we feel 

 each year as to whether the birds have chosen other pas- 

 tures is dispelled by the notes of alarm as the paddock is 

 reached. As previously mentioned, each pair of birds 

 jealously guards a fixed area surrounding its own nest. 

 In every case this area contains a dead tree, and from the 

 bare limbs of this point of vantage attacks are made on 

 the intruder the moment he crosses the invisible frontier. 

 The nearer to the nest the greater becomes the fury of the 

 attack — an unfailing "hot or cold" tell-tale which soon 

 points out the conspicuous nest. So consistently do the 

 birds hold to their theory of a look-out and a surrounding 

 allotment that not one case has been noticed in this parti- 

 cular colony where a nest is not associated with a dead 

 tree. Further, each pair of birds minds its own business. 

 and leaves the intruder wholly to the fury of the next family 

 as soon as he passes out of their own domain. Should a 

 Wood Swallow trespass on his neighbour's estate he is 

 very suddenly and surely reminded that his own part of the 

 world is safer. 



A comparison of the contents of the nests almost in- 



148 



