12 MATHE]VS— Birds of North and North-West Australia. 



ing for insects both amongst the fallen debris, and amongst 

 the branches of the bashes, also up the trunks of the trees 

 with a rerv similar action to a tree creeper's, but not once did 

 I hear them make any call note or song. 



I think probably it is a new locality for this bird, but Mr. 

 Butler records it from considerably further to the West. Mr. 

 F. M. Littler in his birds of Tasmania, calls it the ''White 

 Breasted Scrub Tit," certainly a very descriptiye name. 



Locally it was known to my friends at Latrobe, when as 

 boys they had been egg collet-ting, as the "little scrub bird" in 

 distinction to the "Sericornis humilis", which they knew as 

 the "Greater scrub bird." Its habits, movements, and gene- 

 ral appearance lead me to conclude that it is more closely re- 

 lated to the genus Serieoiuris than to that of Acanthiza, where 

 Gould originally placed it. 



The rarity of this bird is probably due to its retiring 

 habits, and general lack of call notes. It is evidently widely 

 distributed though yery local in its haunts. 



EDWIN ASHBY, 



"Wittunga", Blackwood. 



Birds of the 

 North and North-West of Australia. 



From Notes and Skins made by the late Capt. T. H. 

 Bowyer-Bower. 



By Gregory M. Mathews, F.R.S.E., F.L.S., M.B.O.U.., 



No. 9. 



No. 97. Axhinga novaehollandiae. Darter. 



Plotus novaehollandiae (Gould). Proc. Zool. Soc. (Loud.), 

 1847, p. 34. New South Wales. 



No. 535— 9 . Length, 36.5 inches (10/11/86). 



On being wounded its mate remained with her and they 

 dived about, often going some two hundred yards under 

 water. When they came to the surface they only showed 



