WHITE-EYE. 
in recent years many facts have tended to discount North’s results, and I now 
suggest that the matter he reopened and as the bird is common, hurtful and 
not protected, sufficient material can be collected : not fifty sldns, but five 
hundred from many localities and the facts determined. 
Item No. 1. In Tasmania no yellow-throated birds occur and the young 
are the same as the adult. 
Item No. 2. In January in Victoria both yellow- and white-throated 
birds occur. 
Item No. 3. In Queensland only yellow-throated birds occur. 
Item No. 4. On Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands the two forms occur 
as very different species. 
Item No. 5. In New Zealand where this bird is supposed to have migrated 
from Australia all the birds examined agree in being white-throated, no 
yellow-throated birds being seen, though birds in juvenile and adult plumage, 
in summer and winter, have been examined. 
It is somewhat difficult to disentangle the synonymy, and as the matter 
is sub judice I have left the references under the one name, but here indicate 
the ranges and distinctions of the two forms. 
Masters nearly fifty years ago described Zosterops ramsayi : “ Male. 
Crown of the head, neck, throat, wings, rump and under tail-coverts, greenish- 
yellow ; lores, and a fine beneath the eye, black; back and chest, bluish- 
grey ; abdomen light grey, passing into very fight buff on the flanks ; eyes 
surrounded by a very large zone of white feathers ; primaries and secondaries 
brownish-black, margined on their outer webs with yellow; beneath, on 
their inner webs, with white ; tail, brown, margined with yelloAv ; legs and 
feet bluish-grey; upper mandible brownish-black; under mandible horn- 
colour ; irides brown. Total length 4*4 ; wing, 2*4 ; tail, 1*75 ; tarsi, 0*65 ; 
bill from fore-head, 0*5 ; from gape, 0*6.” 
Two specimens from Palm Island, Torres Straits : “ Easily distinguished 
by the very large zone of white feathers surrounding the eye.” 
“ Although they appeared to be tolerably numerous, we found it very 
difficult to obtain specimens as they frequented the highest trees in the dense 
scrubs.” 
Overlooking this description Hartert, twenty odd years later, named : 
“ Zosterops westemensis vegeta. The Zosterops from Cape York differ from 
specimens from New South Wales and Victoria (the type is from Western 
Port in Victoria) in being smaller and the colours somewhat clearer. The 
flanks are less brown, the under tail-coverts bright sulphur-yellow instead 
of white, with a faint tinge of yellow, as in Z. westemensis westemensis. Lis 
light brown, feet dark slate-colour, bill black, bluish slate-colour towards the 
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