NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 85 



Mr. Gould describes it as a bird of pleasing actions, 

 often taking up its abode and incubating near the houses, 

 particularly sucli as are surrounded by paddocks and 

 open pasture-lands, skirted by large trees. Tt was in 

 such situations as these in Van Diemen's Land that this 

 enterprising traveller and excellent ornithologist first 

 observed it at the commencement of spring. The species 

 was there very numerous on all the cleared estates on the 

 north side of the Derwent, about eight or ten being seen 

 on a single tree, and half as many crowding against each 

 other on the same dead branch, but never in such num- 

 bers as to deserve the appellation of flocks. Each bird 

 appeared to act independently of the other, each, as the 

 desire for food prompted it, sallying forth from the branch 

 to capture a passing insect, or to soar round the tree and 

 return again to the same spot. This habit appears to me 

 to indicate some relationship to the fly-catchers. But to 

 return to Mr. Gould, who goes on to state, that on alighting 

 it repeatedly throws up and closes one wing at a time, and 

 spreads the tail obliquely prior to settling. Sometimes 

 he saw a few perched on the fence surrounding the pad- 

 dock, on which they frequently descended like starlings, 

 in search of coleopterous and other insects. It is not, 

 however, he adds, in this state of comparative quiescence 

 that this graceful bird is seen to the greatest advantage, 

 neither is it that kind of existence for which its form is 

 especially adapted ; for although its structure, according 

 to Mr. Gould, is more equally suited for terrestrial, 

 arboreal, and aerial habits, than that of any other species 

 which he had examined, the form of its wing, he observes, 

 at once points out the air as its peculiar province. 



Hence it is (remarks Mr. Gould, in continuation) that when 

 engaged in pursuit of the insects, which the serene and warm 

 weather has enticed from their lurking-places among the foliage to 

 sport in higher regions, this beautiful species in these aerial fliglits 

 displays its greatest beauty while soarmg above in a variety of 

 easy positions, with white-tipped tail widely spread. 



