THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Berney’s notes from North Queensland read : 4 4 Two lots of P. ariel , 
a summer and a winter lot, the former arriving in November and leaving again 
in March, while the latter arrive in April or May and leave us towards the end 
of August. None about — practically none— from the middle of April to early 
in May, and the same from middle of August to early in September. The 
birds are very much more numerous in summer than winter. Both lots nest 
in the district, December-February and July- August.” 
Mr. Tom Carter has written me: 44 The Fairy Martin is fairly common, 
locally, in the mid-west, but was not observed by me about Broome Hill 
or elsewhere in the south-west. There was quite a large colony breeding 
annually on the face of a shaly cliff on the bank of Cardabia Creek, on my 
run, inland from Point Cloates. On several occasions when examining some 
of the nests, I found a carpet snake coiled up inside them. Upon dissection 
these snakes were always found to have inside them some of the young or 
old birds, sometimes three or four having been swallowed. It was surprising 
to find how a snake of several feet in length was coiled in a tight ball inside 
a nest. At another creek, a few nests were found built to the underside of 
a White Gum, leaning over a pool. They seem partial to water, perhaps 
because mud is handy. They also nest freely under house verandahs. August 
appears to be the chief breeding-month, and three or four eggs to the clutch. 
On August 4th, 1899, a large proportion of the nests in the 4 cliff 5 colony 
above mentioned contained eggs. On June 2nd, 1893, several adult birds 
were seen dead and dying under the verandah at Point Cloates house. 
For a few days previously very cold south-east winds had blown, and 
no doubt the birds perished mainly from lack of insect food; but seeing 
that Point Cloates lies fifty miles inside the Tropic line, it was a remarkable 
circumstance.” 
Concerning this species Mr. Edwin Ashby observes : 44 It is numerous 
round Blackwood, but especially so along the banks of the River Murray, 
where almost evenr cave or hollow in the cliffs has a colony of the bottle-like 
nests of this bird. In the neighbourhood of Blackwood there were several 
small caves or rock hollows in the various gullies, each of which had its colony 
of Fairy Martin nests, and they also made use of the culverts under the railway 
line, but of later years many of these breeding-places are being deserted, owing 
to the breaking down of so many of the nests by boys. Three or four years 
ago the Martin took to nesting under the cement verandah of one of my friends, 
the nests being built on the inside of the cement facia under the verandah 
floor about six feet from the ground ; there were the first year nearly a hundred 
nests, and the remarkable thing about them was that they were all built in a 
straight line so that it looked as if some invisible line had been drawn parallel 
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