THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Littler has also recorded : “On almost any moonlight night, while there 
are young to feed, the parent birds sally forth and gather food for their 
insatiable young. This goes on nearly the whole night. This especially applies 
to those about farm-houses that have come under my notice .... Does 
this bird ever build in trees, under certain conditions ? I have good grounds 
for suspecting it does.” 
Berney stated : “To North Queensland a winter visitor only ; never 
being seen in summer. I have record of them from October to March inclusive ; 
never at any time as numerous as its ally, the Fairy Martin. During the 
winters of 1903 and 1904 it was represented by one solitary individual only 
each year. Previous to 1903 it appeared to arrive during April and leave 
again by August, a few remaining into September, but being all gone by the 
end of that month. On the wing it is easily distinguished from arid by its 
forked tail, which part in the latter bird looks stumpy by comparison ; then 
the dark rump in neoxena is in strong contrast to the light rump of arid .” 
Mr. J. W. Mellor has also sent me good notes regarding their nesting- 
habits, nests and eggs, but as so much has been written I must refrain from 
further quotations on this subject ; but Christian has written me that he 
watched a pair feeding their young and that the pair fed the young alternately, 
the male first and third, the female second and fourth, and that this was done 
regularly and without change, the old birds waiting their turn to feed the 
young one regularly. 
Miss Fletcher has recorded an incident of Swallows driving Dusky Robins 
from the latter’s nest and dragging out the two young ones, repairing the 
nest, and then not using it, but in the following year made use of the Robins’ 
nest to rear a second brood in. The succeeding year they only used the 
Robins’ nest for the purpose of breeding. In the same note Miss Fletcher 
recorded an instance of a Swallow being built in with mud, and as it was only 
found dead the reason was unknown, and she asks : “ It is a curious question 
why the sitting Swallow was walled in. Was she an interloper, and did 
jealousy cause the others to punish her ? Or did she die on the nest ? ” It 
is curious that in British popular ornithological works there was a tale of a 
Sparrow which usurped a Swallow or Martin’s nest, and as it would not leave 
it was walled in with mud and left to die. 
It is pleasing to note that Batey wrote of this bird: “ With respect to visits, 
nesting and numbers the same as it was sixty years ago”; though of the Tree 
Swallow : “ Came to breed annually. Sparrows, with Starlings, have appro- 
priated the few hollow spouts on my area, with the result that we never see 
this bird now ” (in 1907). 
Mr. Tom Carter has given me a long note from which I quote : “ The 
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