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 faintlv 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 the 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 iotroduced 
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 Menura victor ice and 
Anas super ciliosa. In a low myrtaceous 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 I" 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 npon the larger islands, but I saw only a couple 
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 
