28 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



rigines of the lowland and mountain district of 

 Western Australia, and the Worle of those of 

 King George's Sound bids fair to become as 

 great a favorite with the inhabitants of that fifth 

 quarter of the globe, destined probably to be the 

 seat of a great empire hereafter, as the true swal- 

 low is with Europeans. Few birds have been 

 more bandied about by systematic ornithologists. 

 Latham made it a thrush, Cuvier an Ocypterus, 

 and Wagler a Leptopteryx. The Australian col- 

 onists 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 bull's eye. 



Mr. Gould describes it as a bird of pleasing 

 actions, often taking up its abode and incubating 

 near the houses, particularly such as are surrounded 

 by paddocks and open pasture-lands, skirted by 

 large trees. It 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 numbers as to deserve the appella- 

 tion of flocks. Each bird appeared to act inde- 

 pendently 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. Some- 

 times he saw a few perched on the fence surround- 

 ing the paddock, on which they frequently de- 

 scended 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 struc- 

 ture, according to Mr. Gould, is more equally 

 suited for terrestrial, arboreal, and aerial habits, 

 than that of any other species which he had ex- 

 amined, 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 flights 

 displays its greatest beauty while soaring above in 

 a variety of easy positions, with white-tipped tail 

 widely spread. 



But another extraordinary habit which, how- 

 ever, Mr. Gould did not himself observe is rep- 

 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 wel 

 as the island of Van Diemeu's Land, being alike favored 

 with its presence." 



esented in one of the exquisite plates which 

 llustrate the grand work from which we have 

 >een quoting. 



Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Gould's assistant, gave him 

 he following information, the result of what Mr. 

 Gilbert saw at Swan river : 



The greatest peculiarity in the habits of this bird 

 s its manner of suspending itself in perfect clusters, 

 ike a swarm of bees ; a few birds suspending them- 

 selves on the under side of a dead branch, while 

 others of the flock attach themselves one to the other 

 n such numbers, that they have been observed 

 nearly of the size of a bushel measure. 



This habit of clustering shows itself in the Eu- 

 ropean swallow. Sir Charles Wager relates, that 

 in the spring of the year, as he came into sound- 

 ings in our channel, a great flock of swallows 

 :ame and settled on all his rigging ; every rope, 

 IB says, was crowded. " They hung on one an- 

 other like a swarm of bees ; the decks and carving 

 were filled with them. They seemed almost 

 famished and spent, and were only feathers and 

 bones ; but, being recruited with a night's rest, 

 took their flight in the morning." 



These weary travellers were evidently on their 

 way northward, and must have passed over 

 France. 



Mr. Gould found the Australian wood-swallow 

 very numerous in the town of Perth, until about 

 the middle of April, and then he missed it sud- 

 denly, and did not observe it again until near the 

 end of May, when he saw it in countless num- 

 bers flying in company with the common swallows 

 and martens over a lake about ten miles north of 

 the town so numerous, indeed, that he describes 

 them as darkening the water as they flew over it. 

 Its voice, he says, greatly resembles that of the 

 common swallow in character, but it is much more 

 harsh. He describes the stomach as muscular and 

 capacious, and the food as consisting of insects 

 generally. 



In Van Dieman's Land it may, Mr. Gould adds, 

 be regarded as strictly migratory. It arrives 

 there, according to his observation, in October, the 

 beginning of the Australian summer, and after 

 rearing at least two broods, departs again north- 

 wards in November. A scattered few remain 

 throughout the year on the continent in all the 

 localities favorable to their habits, the number 

 being regulated by the supply of insect food. He 

 remarks, that specimens from Swan river, South 

 Australia, and New South Wales, present no 

 difference, either in size or coloring, while those 

 from Van Diemen's Land are invariably larger in 

 all their admeasurements, and are also of a deeper 

 color. 



The general season of incubation is from Sep- 

 tember to December, and the situation of the nest 

 much varied. Mr. Gould saw one in a thickly- 

 foliaged bush near the ground ; others, in a naked 

 fork, on the side of the bole of a tree, in a niche 

 formed by a portion of the bark having been sepa- 

 rated from the trunk, &c. The nest itself he 

 describes as rather shallow, of a rounded form, 



