INSESSORES. 365 



may be distinguished from that species by its more diminutive 

 size, by its much shorter bill, and smaller tail. It is an 

 active prying little bird, and spends much of its time amid 

 the smaller leafy branches of the trees, from among which it 

 collects its insect food : the tail is generally carried above the 

 line of the body. The nest is of a dome-shaped form, and is 

 constructed of fine dried grasses and hairy fibres of bark, 

 intermingled and bound together with the hairy cocoons of a 

 species of Lepidopterous insect, and lined with feathers. The 

 eggs are four or five in number, of a beautiful pearly white, 

 sprinkled and spotted with fine specks of reddish brown, 

 forming in some instances a zone near the larger end ; their 

 medium length is eight lines and a half, by six lines in 

 breadth. 



The sexes are so precisely similar in outward appearance 

 that dissection must be resorted to to distinguish the one 

 from the other. 



Forehead buff", each feather edged with brown; all the 

 upper surface and wings brown, tinged with olive; tail 

 reddish olive, crossed near the tip by a narrow band of 

 black ; throat and chest greyish white, each feather margined 

 with black, giving that part a mottled appearance; flanks, 

 abdomen, and under tail-coverts buff"; irides brownish red; 

 bill dark brown ; feet brown. 



Sp. 221. ACANTHIZA DIEMENENSIS, Gould. 

 Tasmantan Acanthiza. 



Acanthiza diemenensis, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc, part v. p. 146. 



ewingii, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc, part xv. p. 32 ; Id. Birds 



of Aust. foL, vol. iii. pi. 55 ? 

 Bruiun-tuil, Colonists of Tasmania. 



Acanthiza diemenensis, Gould, Birds of Australia, fol., vol. iii. 

 pi. 54. 



I believe this species to be peculiar to Tasmania, over the 



