82 RUDOLF SÖDERBERG, STUDIES OF THE BIRDS IN NORTH WEST AUSTRALIA. 
Ecological. — The coccophasant was found, though not commonly, both at 
Mowla Downs, Nooncanbah (Fitzroy), Meda, Beagle bay and Sunday Island. At the 
latter place I saw it living on mountain slopes among big blocks of stone. Here I 
noticed that it liked to find dark hollows and passages between the blocks. But in 
Beagle bay it kept to places with twiggy brushwood or high grass in the neigh- 
bourhood of water. Between the grass-knolls, where the ground was bare, the bird 
ran at rather a high speed. Here I saw it very seldom above the ground. 
Its curious cry was a dull, monotonous cooing repeated in a long series. 
At Sunday Island on the 18th of Nov. I found the very simple nest of the 
bird under a rock. In it there were two white eggs, which had a thick shell and 
a calcareous crust. 
Order Passeriformes. 
Fam. Hirundinidzee. 
Petrochelidon nigricans neglecta MATH. 
Math. handl; n:r 431. I (ad.), 9 ad. Meda, Kimb. 17/5 1911; 2 99 ad. Meda, ibid, ?5/5 1911; 1 FJ ad., 
1 sex.? Beagle bay, Dampier 1. !0/7, 30/5 1911, I juv., /7 1911, moult. head and back. 
Juvenals. — No. 1 and no. 7 seem to be younger birds. The plumage darker 
above, and the chest and throat tinged with a smoky rufous colour, duller than the 
adults. The band at the forehead narrow and pale. The one is white on the lower 
back, not smoky buff as in the other one. 
Variants. — Two specimens (nos. 3 and 4), both of them females, have the 
whole forehead down to a line between the eyes very pale brick-red, this part being 
much broader than in the other ones. 
Ecological. — The fairy martin is common during the breeding-season at 
Mowla Downs. In May I saw it in flocks in Meda and in June it was common at 
Derby. It was found in Dampier land (Beagle bay) too, and is said to appear at 
Sunday Island sometimes. ) 
It had its breeding localities at Mowla Downs in the grotto-like caves of the 
sandstone rocks, spread over the plain, and looking like ruins. (Plate 5, fig. 4, 
and page 31, fig. 19.) Here the nests were built together either in the ceiling or 
in the upper part of the grotto. Some of the nests had tube-shaped entrance, others 
only crannylike opening. (See further page 30 and 32.) In several cases Artamus 
minor (cf. this species) had settled and hatched its eggs in the midst of the colony 
in an old swallow'”s nest. The martins built in Dec. but were seen at their nests even 
in the beginning of Nov. 
In Derby I observed that in the month of June towards night these martins 
still continue to fly over the same course as they did in april between the continent 
and an island out in King's Sound at the mouth of Fitzroy river. They passed in 
big or small flocks at the same time and seemed to fly to the island for the night. 
