280 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 
ground. This handsome bird is no longer abundant near the 
settlements, having retired to sueh wooded places as afford it 
more seclusion. 
Genus—Zosterops. 
14. Zosterops laterals, Lath. 
Blight bird, White eye, Tauhou.—One of the more common 
birds, very useful as an insect eater, very destructive to many 
kinds of fruit, such as figs, cherries, raspberries, &c. This honey- 
eater is remarkably indifferent as to what kinds of food it feeds on, 
I have seen it assembled in flocks near a slaughter-yard, feasting 
en particles of fat pecked from sheep skins stretched out on the 
rail fence to dry ; at other times vigorously competing with its 
mates for morsels of fat from a pig tub—very unseemly food for 
a honey-eater. It affords another instance of the difficulties that 
await hard and fast rules in systematic arrangements ; it is quite 
possible that the Zosterops may be removed from the Melipha- 
gidee at some future revision of the New Zealand fauna. It 
uses agreat variety of material in nest-building, this is partly 
caused by situation; it seems to avail itself of any suitable 
material that is readily accessible. Mosses, and soft grasses 
usually predominate ; wool, thin slips of bark, webs, horsehair, 
are freely used ; some nests are composed chiefly of grass, with 
perhaps a tuft or two of grey-beard moss. In the more elaborate 
structures the cottony down of plants is interwoven with moss 
and spiders-webs ; often hair is worked in asa lining, more rarely 
fine hair, little roots of ferns, or delicate slips from the leaves of 
a carex, or stiff grass. The nest is cup-like and round, purse 
or hammock-shaped. It is suspended by careful workmanship, 
in which wool, grasses, or webs are used; or it is built ona 
spray of a shrub without being suspended. It is deep or shal- 
low, thick and warm, or so slightly constructed that it may be 
seen through. Sometimes it may be observed built mostly of 
thin scales of manuka bark, in others wool is well nigh the only 
material. I once found a nest beautifully sewn or bound to a 
spray, showing a style of art and skill that few birds could sur- 
pass either in strength or neatness, exhibiting a wonderful de- 
eree of intelligence in the little architects. In endeavouring to 
describe the art of nest-building in many species, the difficulty 
is to know where to stop, there are so many details that it 
seems desirable to give which would take pages to set down. 
But there yet remains to record some peculiarly interesting work 
of the Zosterops, such as using for lining purposes, narrow 
strips of the outer edge of tough phormium leaves ; these pieces 
are stripped almost as fine as horsehair, and curled into the 
roundness of the cup with admirable neatness and regularity. 
What a work of difficulty and labour it must have caused the 
little architects to secure this peculiar material which made the 
interior of the structure of a bright orange or chestnut. I have 
known the nest constructed of moss secured firmly by the skil- 
ful entwinement of webs, to be lined with the innerlace bark of 
