WHITE-RUMPED WOOD-SWALLOW. 
tops of the tallest trees, and from this point of vantage watch for any insects 
on the wing, now and again leaving their perch to sail round and round on 
easy wing. Situated as they were high overhead, all I could see was their 
under-surface — an expanse of spotless white shirtfront, topped with a sooty- 
grey head — reminding me of a gathering of negro minstrels. Nestling 
together in a row, they were on the best of terms, this little party, and as 
each returned, after having a look around, it shuffled along the limb till it 
was tight up against the outside bird, when it settled down, and called with 
contented chirps with a strong twang to a companion still floating in the 
beams of the lowering sum.’ ” 
Macgillivray has recorded : “ Noted at Green Island and on a nest in 
a tree in the main street, Cairns, on 18th November, 1909 ; at Sedan in 
February, 1910, and frequently at Cape York. One nested in an old nest 
of Chlamydera cerviniventris , another in a cleft of a dead mangrove. 
There were always several flying about Lloyd’s Island and other islands 
along the coast on which there was any scrub. At Haggerstone Island 
several old nests were found in the tea-tree along the shore. Common on 
the Archer River in June.” 
Mr. J. P. Rogers wrote from Melville Island : “ Cooper’s Camp, Nov. 20, 
1911. On the 4th I found a nest of this species ; on the 16th it contained one 
egg, but on the 18th the egg was gone and nest abandoned. The nest was 
built in a small gum tree overhanging the sea-beach and was placed in a 
bunch of shoots which were growing where a branch was broken off. This 
species is fairly numerous along the foreshore, but none have been seen 
inland to date. Dec. 10, 1911. This is the only Wood-Swallow r seen on 
the Island and is more numerous than I have ever seen it before. I saw a 
Wood-Swallow very like this one in the Botanical Gardens at Buitenzorg, 
Java, when I came through there recently. Dec. 20, 1911. 10 miles S.E. 
of Snake Bay. A few were seen in the paper -bark trees growing in the 
great swamp, but were very rare. Feb. 6, 1912. Cooper’s Camp. Still 
fairly numerous here.” 
Mr. Tom Carter has written me : “ Mr. Shortridge remarks in the Ibis, 
1909, p. 672, that he found the White-rumped Swallow ‘ plentiful and 
gregarious,’ and he obtained specimens at Carnarvon, West Australia, 
but he does not specify the localities where he found them plentiful. I am 
inclined to think that he happened to be collecting in a year when an irruption 
of this species had taken place, because in the course of seventeen years’ 
residence in the Gascoyne and North-west Cape Districts, these birds 
were never observed by me. But when at Carnarvon in September, 1911, 
a small party of them was seen by me near there for the first time. Again 
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