98 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



was found to be as clean as when placed in the case fifteen months 

 previously. 



The question naturally arises as to whether it is advisable that 

 air in a museum case shall remain unchanged ; this is an aspect 

 of the question I do not profess to have studied, but there is one 

 very apparent advantage. In warm climates great trouble is 

 caused by those museum depredators, moths, and particularly the 

 beetles Antlirenus and Dermestes ; the exhibits have to be con- 

 stantly handled, and the depredators destroyed. In a case 

 constructed as before suggested, iii which no interchange of air 

 takes place, the contained air could be poisoned, and would so 

 I'emain for a long period. 



Ox THE SEASONAL CHANGES m the PLUMAGE op 

 ZOSTEROPS G.ERULESCENS. 



By Alfred J. North, P.L.S. 

 (Ornithologist to the Australian Museum). 



In describing Zosterofs westernensis of Quoy and Gaimard in 

 the " Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,"* Dr. R. Bowdler 

 Sharpe makes the following observations : — " An Australian speci- 

 men has been described, and it is extraordinary that a bird which 

 seems to be widely distributed on that continei\t should so much 

 have escaped notice, the only allusion to the species that I can 

 find in Mr. Gould's work being a passage where he mentions that 

 some specimens of Z. ccerulescens have the ' throat wax-yellow.' 

 It seems to be the Z. wester7iensis (Q. & G.), a species re-instated 

 in the system by Dr. Hartlaub (J. f. O. 1865) p. 20." 



With a view of solving the mystery why so common a species 

 should have been overlooked by most writers, I have given this 

 subject my attention for the past two years, by careful observa- 

 tion and the collecting of a number of specimens of Zosferops 

 found in the neighbourhood of Sydney. For a liberal supply of 

 these birds every mouth, from January until tlie end of August, 

 the thanks of the Trustees are chiefly due to Mr. H. J. Acland, 

 of Greendale, and for a small series of Tasmanian skins to Mr, 

 E. Leefe Atkinson, of Table Cape. Mr. J. A. Thorpe, the Taxi- 

 dermist, too, has assisted at various times, and from the specimens 



* Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus. ix., p. 156 (1884). 



