128 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



before they care to investigate trees bearing fruits they have not 

 been accustomed to. 



By including the genus Zosterops in the Meliphagidse a cry will 

 surely rise from the oologists. After many years of careful and 

 laborious research it has been proved by the specialists that the 

 Zosterops, without exception (as far as I am aware), lay blue-green 

 eggs, while amongst the Honey -eaters the salmon tint prevails. 



Oologists have for a champion Professor Newton, who, seeing 

 no special reason why the sub-family Zosteropinae should be placed 

 with the family Meliphagidse, leaves it an open question. Follow- 

 ing the classification adopted by the British Museum in this class, 

 I will include the Grey-backed Zosterops, Zosterops coerulescens, 

 Lath. (W.),* as a wanderer throughout southern Australia, and a 

 bird which requires further study from an economic point of view. 



The family flocks are generally eight in number, and as they 

 travel through the orchards a slight warfare is made upon them, 

 for in spring and summer they feast upon small fruit, in winter 

 apples. To use an orchardist's expression, " they have quite gone 

 over to the enemy of late years, and we must deal with them 

 accordingly." Certainly its taste for commercial fruits is culti- 

 vated when opportunity stares it in the face ; but what about the 

 good which I am inclined to think it does ? I remember seeing 

 a Silver-eye hunting along a branch of a tall pear tree. An insect 

 fell from its hiding place, and simultaneously the bird swooped 

 perpendicularly in time to catch the lesser form, and with a right- 

 angled movement escape the ground, to which it was unpleasantly 

 close. A set strain of music by the bird, reminding one of the 

 Reed Warbler, Acrocephalus Australis, is occasionally blended with 

 its call note. 



I have observed the callow young as late as ioth February, 

 1895, at the head of the Ovens River, where spring is late in 

 appearing. The eggs are laid on alternate days, and at an early 

 age the young assume the general plumage of the adult, and then 

 go through the detail of the seasonal changes. 



Although this species concludes the local list, there is a visitor 

 in quantity at present and throughout the winter located in the 

 principal gardens of the city. It is the Singing Honey-eater, 

 Ptilotis sonora. A pleasant trill is the better part of its musical 

 execution, and its guttural notes remind one of the use of a 

 pestle in a metallic mortar. You may quickly detect it as a bird 

 more slim than the well-known greyish native Miner, streaked on 

 the breast and elongated tail. 



The Honey-eaters are of a family whose acquaintance is well 

 worth cultivating, and a first introduction we may so easily obtain 

 from those unsurpassed works of Mr. John Gould, whose artist 

 wife has put much " life " into that portion done by her, and 

 which remains a noble memorial of two great workers. 



