Part 18

It was very numerous in the town of Perth until about the middle of April, when I missed it suddenly, nor did I observe it again until near the end of May, when I saw it in countless numbers flying in company with the Common Swallows and Martens over a lake about ten miles north of the town; so numerous, in fact, were they, that they darkened the water as they flew over it.

Its voice greatly resembles that of the Common Swallow in character, but is much more harsh.

The stomach is muscular and capacious, and the food consists of insects generally.

The season of incubation is from September to December. The situation of the nest is much varied; I have seen one placed in a thickly foliaged bough near the ground, while others were in a naked fork, on the side of the hole of a tree, in a niche formed by a portion of the bark having been separated from the trunk, &c. The nest is rather shallow, of a rounded form, about five inches in diameter, and composed of fine twigs neatly lined with fibrous roots. I observed that the nests found in Van Diemen’s Land were larger, more compact and more neatly formed than those on the continent of Australia; and one which was shown me by Mr. Justice Montague on his picturesque estate at Kangaroo Point, near Hobart Town, was placed at the extremity of a small leafy branch, as represented in the Plate.

The eggs are generally four in number; they differ much in the disposition of their markings; their ground-colour is dull white, spotted and dashed with dark umber-brown; in some a second series of greyish spots appear as if beneath the surface of the shell; their medium length is eleven lines, and breadth eight lines.

Head, neck, and the whole of the body fuliginous grey; wings dark bluish black, the external edges of the second, third and fourth primaries white; tail bluish black, all the feathers except the two middle ones largely tipped with white; irides dark brown; bill blue with a black tip; feet mealy lead-colour.

The sexes are alike in the colouring of their plumage, and are only to be distinguished by the female being somewhat smaller in size.

The young have an irregular stripe of dirty white down the centre of each feather of the upper surface, and are mottled with the same on the under surface.

The Plate represents a male and female of the natural size.

ARTAMUS MINOR: Vieill.

J. Gould and H. C. Richter, del^t C. Hullmandel Imp. ]

ARTAMUS MINOR, Vieill. Little Wood Swallow.

Artamus minor, Vieill. Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat., tom. xvii. p. 298.—Ib. Ency. Méth., Part II. p. 759.

Ocypterus fuscatus, Valenc. Mém. du Mus. d’Hist. Nat., tom. vi. p. 24. t. 9. fig. 1.

Leptopteryx minor, Wagl. Syst. Av., sp. 6.

Ocypterus minor, Gould, Syn. Birds of Australia, Part I. fig. 1.

In its structure and in the disposition of the markings of its plumage, this species offers a greater resemblance to the Artamus sordidus than to any other member of the group; the habits of the two species are also very similar; if any difference exists, it is that the present bird is still more aërial, a circumstance indicated by the more feeble form of the foot, and the equal, if not greater, development of the wing. During fine weather, and even in the hottest part of the day, it floats about in the air in the most easy and graceful manner, performing in the course of its evolutions many beautiful curves and circles, without the least apparent motion of the wings, whose silvery whiteness as seen from beneath, together with the snowy tips of its wide-spread tail, offer a strong contrast to the dark colouring of the other parts of its plumage.

I found it abundant on the Lower Namoi, particularly on the plains thinly studded with the Acacia pendula and other low trees in the neighbourhood of Gummel-Gummel, where it had evidently been breeding, as I observed numerous young ones, whose primaries were not sufficiently developed to admit of their performing a migration of any distance; besides which, they were constantly being fed by the parents, who were hawking about in the air over and around the trees, while the young were quietly perched on some dead twig, as represented in the accompanying Plate, where two adults and three young are figured, in the manner in which they are seen huddled together in a state of nature.

I have not yet heard of this species having been seen within the prescribed limits of the colony of New South Wales, neither is it a native of Southern or Western Australia.

I have received two specimens from Port Essington, and I believe the examples in the Paris Museum were from Timor, which proves that it has a wide range northwards of the Namoi; and I shall not be surprised if future research should ascertain it to be very generally distributed over the interior of the Australian continent, not as a summer visitant only, but as a permanent resident.

The sexes are alike in plumage, but the young differ considerably, as shown in the Plate, a reference to which will give a more correct idea of their appearance and markings than any description.

The whole of the head, back, and abdomen chocolate-brown; wings, rump, and under tail-coverts bluish black; tail deep bluish black, all the feathers except the two outer and two middle ones tipped with white; bill beautiful violet-blue at the base, darker at the tip; irides and feet nearly black.

The figures are of the natural size.

ARTAMUS CINEREUS. Vieill.

J. Gould and H. C. Richter, del^t C. Hullmandel Imp. ]

ARTAMUS CINEREUS, Vieill. Grey-breasted Wood Swallow.

Artamus cinereus, Vieill. Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat., tom. xvii. p. 297.—Ib. Ency. Méth., Part II. p. 758.—Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 211.

Ocypterus cinereus, Valanc. Mém. du Mus. d’Hist. Nat., tom. vi. p. 22. t. 9. fig. 1.