84 LEAVES FROM THE 



or in their nests, otherwise we should not have them 

 figured in such a work as the Metallotheca Vaticana. 

 Their presence may be thus accounted for. As a help 

 to the digestion of their insect food, the old swallows are 

 said to give their young ones occasional doses of sand and 

 grit ; these cohering, may be formed into the stones 

 alluded to, and may be either cast, — for Mr. Trevelyan 

 observed that the swallow casts after the fashion of an 

 hawk or owl — voided, or found in the bodies of the young 

 on dissection. 



This looks very like a dissertation on swallows, and 

 any one who may take up these leaves may feel inclined 

 to ' put them down,' under the terror of the many species 

 that remain to be noticed ; but no : interesting as is 

 their history, but one other form of swallow, if swallow 

 it may be called, shall here appear. 



The wood-swallow,* — the Be-ivoiven of the aborigines 

 of the lowland and mountain district of Western Aus- 

 tralia, and the Worle of those of King George's Sound — 

 bids fair to become as great a favourite with the inhabi- 

 tants of that fifth quarter of the globe, destined probably 

 to be the seat of a great empire hereafter, as the true 

 swallow is with Europeans. Few birds have been more 

 bandied about by systematic ornithologists. Latham 

 made it a thrush, Cuvier an Ocypterus, and Wagler a 

 Lepto'pteryx. The Australian colonists appear to have 

 been as near the mark as any of the learned, when they 

 gave it the name which it still bears among them, though 

 they may not have hit the bulFs eye. 



* Artamus sordidus. There are several species of Art ami, of 

 wliich the bird under consideration appears to be the most 

 extensively distributed. * No other species of the Australian Art ami 

 with which I am acquainted,' writes Mr. Gould, in his elegant and 

 accurate Birds of Australia, ' possesses so wide a range from east 

 to west; the whole of the southern portion of the continent, as 

 well as the island of Van Diemen's Land, being alike favoured 

 with its presence.' 



