148 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA: 



sometimes fairly pugnacious, and in defence of their 

 eggs, and especially of their young, will fly at anyone 

 venturing near the nest ; but this fluttering has the 

 opposite effect than that for which it was intended, 

 as it draws the attention of passers by to the place 

 where the nest really is, and both the bird and its eggs 

 generally suffer in consequence. 



In Mr. Campbell's valuable work on "Nests and 

 Eggs of Australian Birds, ' ' the writer remarks : " This 

 handsome Wood-Swallow and the A. super ciliosus are 

 probably more nearly related than are any other two of 

 the Artami, the fact already recorded by me of the 

 female A. personatus being mated to a male of 

 A. superciliosus would tend to prove that assertion ; 

 besides, oologically speaking, the eggs are inseparable, 

 as far as outward appearances go. The voices of the 

 two species are very much alike ; but the ' whamp ' 

 like alarm note of the A. personatus is somewhat coarser 

 and deeper." 



In his "Insectivorous Birds of Victoria" Mr. R. Hall 

 says: " By the middle of December, many of each 

 species were preparing homesteads for the third brood, and 

 they seldom use the nests of a past family for a future one. 

 Late builders were observed, in the early portion of this 

 month (January), carrying twigs. After sundown 

 those birds not engaged in the night tasks of caring for 

 the young or the eggs congregate in bodies, of from ten 

 to fifteen, close together, in a tree or shrub convenient 

 to the nests and near the ground. It may be a large 

 fruit tree, a sweet briar bush, or one of the many other 

 vegetable forms. With both kinds I find that one egg 

 is deposited each day, and the first of the clutch hatches 

 out on the twelfth day of sitting. The young, of the 

 two species, fly upon the eleventh or twelfth day from 

 hatching, subject to a slight variation in a number of 

 broods." 



The food of Wood-Swallows consists, so far as the 

 writer has observed, strictly of insects ; and it is 



