SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 33 



White-browed Wood-swallow (Artamus superciliosus Gould). 



Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 152, No. 79 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 147, No. 311. 



The early naturalists considered that the wood-swallows were related to 

 the thrushes, and Latham called our commonest species the Sordid-thrush. 

 Jerdon, studying the Indian forms, characterised them as swallow-shrikes ; 

 but the popular name, wood-swallow, adopted by Gould, seems to define them 

 more accurately for the bush naturalist, and has been universally adopted in 

 Australia. These birds are also known locally as Blue-martins or Blue- 

 birds, though they are not related to either the swallow or the martin, and 

 only resemble them in their active gregarious habits, often congregating in 

 immense flocks before they separate to nest. The home of the members of 

 the genus Artamus is India, the Malay Archipelago, Australia, and the 

 Pacific Islands. Nine species are described from Australia ; some of these 

 remain on the continent all the year round, while others are migratory in 

 their habits, crossing over to New Guinea before the winter sets in, and 

 returning to us at the fall of the year. On this account this and other species 

 are also popularly known as Summer-birds, coming southward into New South 

 Wales and Victoria, where they settle down and nest in November and 

 December. 



The species now described is one of the most elegant in form and colora- 

 tion of all the family. It is closely related to the more common wood- 

 swallow, Artamus sordidus ; the latter is also about the size of a sparrow, but 

 the whole of the plumage of its body is grey, it lacks the white brow and 

 rich chestnut breast of the former, and its wings and tail are bluish-black. 

 Though so distinctive in coloration and markings, naturalists consider these 

 two species closely allied, for they often mingle together in flocks and 

 nest in the same trees, while there are several authentic records of them 

 mating together. 



As insect destroyers, the wood-swallows play a very important part in 

 keeping in check (and in some cases completely destroying) the armies of 

 cut-worms and swarms of locusts (grasshoppers) that so often infest crops and 

 grass in early summer. In the spring of 1919 in the Hunter River district, 

 numbers of locusts swarmed out in the paddocks, but thousands of wood- 

 swallows arrived from the north and attacked the locusts while in the hopper 

 stage so vigorously that scarcely an insect escaped to reach the perfect flying 

 stage. I visited the district at the end of November, 1919, and found the 

 birds nesting all round the vineyards in the low scrub, each nest with its 

 complement of well-feathered nestlings. 



Both the White-browed and the Sordid Wood-swallows range all over 

 eastern, southern, and north-western Australia ; and though migratory as a 

 general rule, odd specimens may be found well south all the year round. 

 They are not very particular about their nests, and often take possession of 

 the deserted nests of other birds such as the Magpie-lark, re-lining their 

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