trees. Pre-eminently a homely bird. During the summer its loud harsh notes, uttered 

 whilst on the wing, may he constantly heard, but when resting on a telegraph-wire or 

 twig of a tree it has quite a pretty little song." 



Mr. Gibson's note is as follows : — 



"Abundant near Buenos Ayres; coming in the first week of September, and leaving 

 about the end of March. Immediately on their arrival tbey begin to examine their old 

 nesting-sites ; but the eggs do not seem to be laid till much later, and I have taken fresh 

 ones towards the end of November. These sites are crannies in tbe eaves or sables of 

 any building, or various similar situations ; but the nest is never so isolated from one 

 contiguous beam or wall as to necessitate its being entirely built of mud, that material 

 being only used to close up the open sides and leave but one entrance-hole. The mud 

 is very coarsely mixed, sometimes with a good deal of grass in it. The lining consists 

 merely of some dry grass. One of their favourite localities is a beam underneath the 

 eaves of our large wool-store, just at the doorway. It says much for their familiarity 

 that the constant traffic does not deter them from building there. The eggs are of a 

 beautiful white, pear-shaped, and average f^xft; six is the largest clutch I have taken." 



He likewise observes : — " There were two entirely black specimens which used to 

 appear annually at the head station ; but I have not seen them for the last year or two." 

 These were probably P. purpurea on a winter visit from North America, but they may 

 well have been P. furcata. At any rate the mere fact that such a careful observer as 

 Mr. Gibson thinks it worth while to allude to these wholly Black Martins as distinct 

 from the ordinary species of Buenos Ayres seems to prove that one of the above-named 

 species occasionally visits Buenos Ayres. 



Mr. Barrows, in his account of the Birds of Lower Uruguay, writes as follows : — 



" All the Swallows are known as ' Golondrmas? and when it is desired to indicate a 

 particular species an appropriate adjective is used. The present species arrives at Con- 

 cepcion from the north somewhat later than the smaller Swallows, and is not so abundant, 

 though its voice is usually heard at any hour of the day during the breeding-season. 

 During October and November the nests are built — usually in hollows — beneath the 

 eaves of houses and sheds. On October 22nd, 1880, I spent nearly the whole afternoon 

 in watching several hundreds of this species and P. tapera, catching dragon-flies. A high, 

 cold, south wind (' pampero ') was blowing, and the dragon-flies were massed by thousands 

 on the leeward sides of the bushes near the top of a bluff. Benumbed with the cold 

 they only flew when hard pressed, and were then almost inevitably swept by the wiad 

 directly into the waiting mouths of the birds. Selecting a bush on which a peck or 

 two of the insects were clinging, I would dislodge them by a sudden shake, and in an 

 instant they became the centre of a flock of voracious birds, which seemed to have lost 

 all fear, and were intent only on the helpless insects, which were snapped up often 

 within a foot or two of my face. 



" The dragon-flies were of a medium size, having a spread of perhaps 2 A to 3 

 inches. They did not cling to each other like bees or locusts, but simply crowded as 



2 D 



