48 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



FIELD NOTES ON THE HOUSE SWALLOW AND 



WHITE-THROATED THICKHEAD. 



By Robert Hall. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 14th May, 1900.) 



Close observations in the field of our most common insectiv- 

 orous birds will generally yield some new and interesting facts. 

 Even with so common a bird as the House Swallow, Hirundo 

 neoxena, Gould, the subject has by no means yet been exhausted. 

 Recently I have been interested in this bird and a member of 

 the genus Pachycephala, P. gutturalis, Lath., White-throated 

 Thickhead, and it is pleasing to get results such as the young of 

 H. neoxena, requiring twenty-three to thirty days in the nest in 

 preparation for their later life, while those of P. gutturalis need 

 only eleven days to effect the same purpose. Further, the young 

 Thickheads remain in the nest only two days after the eyes have 

 opened, and when they are away from the nest the adult male 

 takes full charge of the young male, the female adult doing the 

 same with the young female. Young Thickheads generally 

 remain in the scrub in the vicinity of the nest for several weeks, 

 while young Swallows fly considerable distances in the day as 

 soon as they leave the nest, and because of their extra strength 

 they can be fed while upon the wing. 



(a.) Hirundo neoxena, Gould, House Swallow. 



The European Swallow, Hirundo rustica, Brisson, winters partly 

 in Southern Asia. The sub-species of it, H. gutturalis, Sonn., 

 is a North-eastern Asiatic bird that winters in the Austro- 

 Malayan sub-region, occasionally reaching the north coast of 

 Australia (Sharpe). H. tytleri, Jerdon, is a second sub-species, 

 said by Professor Newton to occasionally reach Australia in winter 

 from Eastern Siberia, its summer home. H. javanica, Sparrm,, is 

 a species located, broadly speaking, between Southern India, New 

 Guinea, and the islands of Torres Strait, while H. neoxena, 

 Gould, is the Australian species. 



While H. rustica never touches Australia, it is but rarely that 

 H. gutturalis and H. tytleri do so. Up to 1885 one specimen only 

 of H. javanica had been found in Australia, and that practically 

 upon a severed portion of it (Thursday Island), thus giving us 

 an opportunity to treat it in our lists more as a visitor to than as 

 a species of our continent. H. neoxena is our common bird. 

 All are closely allied, each apparently keeping as a whole to its 

 marked area, and only occasionally " telescoping or trespassing " 

 on another's ground, just as our Magpie Lark, Grallina picaia, 

 did recently in the Archipelago to the north of us {Ibis, Jan., 

 1900). 



