128 Mr. R. Hall on Birds 
difficult. The species under review is, I believe, new to 
Western Australia. 
7. Lalage tricolor. White-shouldered Caterpillar-eater. 
(HalFs Key, p. 12.) 
A, B. S ad. sks. 27.10.99. Geraldton. 
C. c? semi-ad. sk. 6.10.99. Katanning. 
These three skins are intensely black or metallic green- 
black, according to the light. I^hey are much more black 
and lustrous than eastern skins in my cabinet, one of which 
is dated (in the breeding-season) 5.10.98, and another 5.3.99. 
The plumage is most likely a matter of age, and the first- 
named bird had probably moulted early or had only ex- 
perienced the autumn moult. 
Specimen C. — This clearly indicates a transitional stage ; 
because the right half of the rectrices (except one, which is 
new) are brown, the innermost secondaries (two on the left 
and three on the right wing) being also brown, and the wing- 
coverts having their edges marked with light brown. The 
basal portion of the under mandible has the brown indicative 
of youth. 
Change of plumage. — Points of interest are presented to 
us not only by specimen C itself, which is just concluding a 
heavy moult of quills and contour-feathers, but by the fact of 
finding in the same specimen the white of the secondaries 
rapidly commencing the moult by " tuck pointing.'^ This 
specimen, I should say, is not proceeding normally. In A 
and B the white of the secondaries is fast disappearing by the 
same process, for whereas a broad band of white (0'7 inch) 
exhibits itself along a part of the outer web, a ragged and 
short band shews along another part of it. This applies to 
many secondaries, and probably commences while the birds 
are nesting, because I saw no young birds fledged, but found 
nests of young and collected male birds on the same ground. 
I presume that, having served their purpose of adornment 
in A and B, if not C, such feathers are the first, by this 
special form of moult, to change. 
Specimen C is moulting its quills in early October instead 
