INSESSORES. 83 



Cicadas and PhasmidfS, upon which they mainly subsist : but 

 they do not refuse other insects, and even berries have been 

 found in their stomachs. They are an inanimate and shiggish 

 group of birds, and depend for their suppHes less upon their 

 power of flight than upon the habit they are said to have 

 of traversing the branches of the various trees upon which 

 their favoiu'ite insects reside ; at intervals during the night 

 they sit about in open places, on rails, stumps of trees, on 

 the roofs of houses. 



In their nidification the Podargi differ in a most remarkable 

 manner from all the other Capnmulgidcd, inasmuch as while 

 the eggs of the ^'EgothelcB are deposited in the holes of trees, 

 and those of the members of the other genera of this family 

 on the ground, these birds construct a flat nest of small sticks 

 on the horizontal branches of trees for the reception of theirs, 

 which are moreover of the purest white. 



Although I have no satisfactory evidence that the Podargi 

 resort to a kind of hybernation for short periods during some 

 portions of the year, I must not omit to mention that I have 

 been assured that they do occasionally retire to and remain 

 secluded in the hollow parts of the trees ; and if such should 

 prove to be the case, it may account for the extreme obesity 

 of many of the individuals I procured, which was often so 

 great as to prevent me from preserving their skins, I trust 

 that these remarks will cause the subject to be investigated 

 by those who are favourably situated for so doing ; for my 

 own part, I see no reason why a bird should not pass a portion 

 of its existence in a state of hybernation ; at the same time 

 the notion of its so doing is very like a repetition of the old 

 assertion respecting the Swallows, for which there is no 

 foundation. 



I would also ask the Australians to ascertain if the differ- 

 ence in colour which occurs in these birds be distinctive of their 

 sex, and if so, to which the respective tints of red and grey 



pertain. 



G 2 



