142 On Birds from Western Australia. 



and being fed by a parent when I saw it, in the early stage 

 of phimage this individual bore a strong likeness to that of the 

 adult. The throat was faintly marked with yellow and the 

 under tail-coverts more strongly but not so distinctly as 

 in the older bird. Both throat and coverts would have the 

 yellow intensified at tl-.e next change of plumage. 



I very frequently met with this species, and was pleasantly 

 surprised to receive a favourable report of it from the owner 

 of an isolated garden upon the Denmark River. This 

 garden contained an acre under fruit, while for twenty 

 miles round there was not so much as a single introduced 

 tree; yet aphides were at work, and the Silver-eye is 

 now secure in the affection of th e owners on account of the 

 good deed it performs in ridding the orchard of the scourge. 

 At Geraldton a young collector told me that this species is 

 very sensitive, for if you touch the eggs it will throw them 

 out of the nest and rebuild it elsewhere with the same 

 materials. It is quite as sensitive as Mefiura victuriae and 

 Anas superciliosa. In a low rayrtaceous shrub, thickly 

 enveloped by a twining " native hop,^' my young friend, 

 Mr. Douglas Darling, found a nest made principally of 

 Clematis fruits and to a less extent of horsehair. Its 

 external diameter was 25 inches, internal diameter 1'75, 

 depth of bowl 1"25, There were three eggs on the point of 

 hatching (13.10.99). 



On the Houtman^s Abrolhos more than a pair could 

 be found upon the larger islands, but I saw only a couj)le 

 on each of the smaller. For instance, I traversed one, 

 of say twenty acres at the most, covered with stunted 

 shrubs, and could only get a single pair of birds to rise. On 

 another treeless islet off East Wallabi Island, a genuine 

 coral mass of some three-quarters of a mile in length and 

 one hundred yards in width, I saw only one bird. Upon this 

 ^' hunch," depressed in the centre and containing brackish 

 water, grew some '' salt-bush " shrubs, acacia (three feet 

 high), and mesembryanthemum. In the last-named was 

 placed a nest with three fresh eggs (21.10.99) within four 

 inches of the " coral and guano " ground. The nest was 



