2S6 mcMiDX, 



Family DICiEID^. 



Genus DICTUM, Cuvier. 



DICTUM HIRUNDINACEUM, Shaw. 



S-wallo-w Dicseum. 



Gould, Rcmdbh. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 358, p. 581. 



No bird seems to have a wider range over the continent of 

 Australia than the present species, specimens having been received 

 from all portions of it where collections have been formed. 

 Especially is it to be found inhabiting the trees where the 

 Loranihus and other parasitical plants abound ; berries of various 

 kinds constituting its food. Mr. J. A. Thorpe found this 

 bird breeding at Cape York in 1866-67, and obtained both nests 

 and eggs. One of the nests now before me, is a beautiful pear-shaped 

 structure with an entrance on one side close to the top, and is 

 suspended to the thin leafy branch of a Eucalyptus. It is 

 composed throughout of the soft downy seeds of plants, beautifully 

 woven together, closely resembling felt, and has quite an 

 elastic tendency ; total length three inches and a-half, breadth 

 two inches and a-quarter; length of aperture which is pear-shaped, 

 one inch and a-quarter, breadth one inch, meeting at a point at 

 the top. Another nest from the same locality is slightly larger, 

 and is ornamented on the outside with portions of the woolly buds 

 of some flowering plant. 



Dr. Hurst who obtained a nest and eggs of this bird in the 

 grounds of Newington College, on the Parramatta River near 

 Sydney, informs me that it took six weeks from the time the nest 

 was first commenced, till it was finished and the full complement 

 of eggs, three in number, laid therein. Eggs perfectly white ; 

 the above set measure as follows : — length (A) 0-65 x O'iS inch ; 

 (B) 0-68 X 0-47 inch ; (C) 0-66 x 0-45 inch. 



Measurements of a set in the Macleayan Museum, taken at 

 Cairns, Northern Queensland, in 1886, length (A) 0-7 x 0-44 inch ; 

 (B) 0-7 X 0-43 inch. 



