In 1874 he accompanied the botanist
Isaac Bayley Balfour and
George Gulliver aboard
HMS Shearwater on an expedition to observe the
transit of Venus on the island of
Rodrigues in the
Indian Ocean. In addition to studies of the flora and fauna, Slater excavated the subfossil bones of extinct birds, including the
Rodrigues solitaire (
Pezophaps solitaria) and
Rodrigues starling (
Necropsar rodericanus). His records were used by the zoologists
Albert Günther and
Alfred Newton to write the first scientific description of the Rodrigues starling in 1879. During a stay in Mauritius in 1875 he and George Gulliver explored the flora, the herpetofauna, and the aquatic avifauna. In 1885 he traveled with
Thomas Carter to
Iceland. In 1897 Slater described the
short-tailed parrotbill (
Paradoxornis davidianus) and the
sulphur-breasted warbler (
Phylloscopus ricketti). Together with
William Bernhardt Tegetmeier he wrote the fifth volume of
British Birds With Their Nests and Eggs (1898), that was illustrated by
Frederick William Frohawk. He visited Iceland three times and wrote the
Manual of the Birds of Iceland, published in 1901. Slater was elected a
Fellow of the Zoological Society of London (FZS) in December 1877. He was also a Member of the
British Ornithologists' Union (MBOU) since 1882, but he resigned from both organizations in 1906, when he left Thornhaugh. == Bibliography ==