2i8 BIRDS OF THE DISTRICT OF GEELONG 
not use the nest itself, and does not want to. It is, 
like the Eagle in the poem, a dreadful bird. 
Swallows have been known to have three broods, 
and I have noted nests with eggs in every month 
from August to December. Four is the usual clutch, 
white, thickly speckled with red-brown and lilac. 
TREE MARTIN 
Hylochelidon nigricans caleyi 
This little Swallow is to be distinguished on the wing 
from the Welcome Swallow by the fact that it has a 
whitish rump. The Fairy Martin also has a white 
rump, but it is dead-white, while the Tree Martin's 
is dusky-white. These two species are, nevertheless, 
very hard to distinguish from each other unless 
flying quite close to the observer. 
The Tree Martin is the least abundant of our three 
Swallows ; it is of that class which I have called 
" infra-Australian " migrants, and though it resorts 
regularly in the spring to certain definite localities 
in this district, these are few in number. My earliest 
note of their arrival is of a flock of a dozen or two 
seen in redgum timber on the edge of the plains 
north-west of Gnarwarre, on September 8th, 191 2. 
Redgums are their favourite nesting-trees : in 
one large tree at " Charlemont," Bream Creek, several 
pairs used to breed in the early nineties, and probably 
do so still. The nest is a small-entranced hollow, 
