Order PASSERIFORMES.l 



[Family ZOSTEBOPIDiE. 



ZOSTEEOPS C M 11 U LESOENS. 



(SILVEE-EYE.) 



Zosterops caerulescens (Latham), Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. i., p. 77. 



The history of the arrival from the South and subsequent stay in the North Island of this little 

 migrant is familiar to all who know anything of our local natural history. Its services to the 

 agriculturist and to the gardener are also pretty generally recognised. But one is always 

 glad to record fresh evidence in favour of any deserving bird— especially, too, when there 

 is a widespread prejudice abroad against little birds in general, and an organised crusade 

 for their destruction. As an instance of this, I may refer to a newspaper paragraph to 

 the effect that during a period of three months the Knapdale Eoad Board (Otago) pur- 

 chased the large number of 56,612 birds' eggs, for the purpose of destroying them. I am 

 glad, therefore, to give the following from my excellent local correspondent, Mr. Bobert 

 Wilson : " The Blight-bird is undoubtedly on the increase in the Bangitikei district. They 

 seem to have found a winter food in the introduced insects, and may now always be seen 

 flying about the run in flocks. The food they are now chiefly subsisting on is a little 

 caterpillar — a striped-green species — which does great harm to the crops in summer. These 

 are now — September— to be found all over grass-lands — under logs, sticks, &c. — and the 

 Blight-bird pursues them indefatigably. When I am working at a fence they will sometimes 

 be within a couple of yards of me, searching every cranny for insects. They are par- 

 ticularly fond of diving out of sight into a common tussock (Gar ex), the plant which 

 grows so freely on the hills, and they crawl about under any fallen scrub, looking for 

 insects, and keeping up a pleasant cheeping all the time. I have sometimes seen them 

 with a caterpillar nearly as big as themselves battering it against a wire on a fence till 

 it was reduced enough to swallow. They must do immense service to farmers at this time 

 of the year, as one caterpillar now means thousands in summer. As every one knows, it 

 is very fond of the American blight, which is so destructive to the apple-trees. There is 

 an orchard close to a patch of native bush on the farm, and the Blight - birds keep it 

 entirely free from this pest. Though the blight sometimes, in hot weather, makes a start 

 on the trees, in winter these birds always keep it under." 



In Fiji I saw small flocks exactly resembling our Blight-bird in their flight and habits, 

 but on shooting one I found that it was quite a distinct species. It has a more con- 

 spicuous eye-ring, with a beautiful lemon-yellow throat, and only the slightest indication of 

 brown on the sides of the body. 



A charge of feasting on pears having been formulated against the Zosterops, an " Old 

 Colonist " came to the rescue in a letter to the Canterbury Press, in which he makes a 

 very good defence : " Under an excellent illustration of Wax-eyes sucking up the juice out of 

 holes made by English birds in the pears, I read ' Blight-birds or Wax-eyes having a feast of 

 pears.' This will mislead a great many people, for there are so many who do not notice that 

 the beaks of all native birds are much too slender to make holes in fruit, and they will think 

 them so very destructive that they will kill all they can. If it had been put that they were 

 having a feast of pear juice everybody would have known they were not destroying the fruit. 

 Afterwards a short note should have been added, saying that English birds had picked the 

 holes. I have lived in New Zealand for forty-seven years, and no fruit was picked till the 

 English birds were brought many years afterwards." 



