THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
it is met with in all the heavy timbered country, but more plentifully dispersed 
through the thickest scrubs, where it is one of the commonest birds, and it 
remains here throughout the whole year. It has rather a loud call for so small 
a bird, and it is to be heard the whole day long. It is a very tame little creature, 
and will allow an intruder to approach within a few feet of it, and very often 
in the non-breeding season they will come to within almost hand’s reach of a 
person, provided he keeps perfectly still. Seldom seen upon the ground, though 
they spend most of their life within a few feet of it, threading their way through 
the forests, gathering their food from leaf to twigs of the eucalypt trees. They 
have a butterfly -like habit of hovering in front of a drooping branch with quick 
fluttering motion of their wings, the head and body remaining stationary the 
while ; this they often keep up for quite half a minute, then suddenly disappear 
amongst the leaves. 
Berney recorded : “ Here (Richmond District, North Queensland) all 
the year round ; their cheerful and lively notes may be heard daily as the 
tiny birds thread their way among the trees — eucalypts for choice, and always 
the tops of them.” 
Campbell, discussing specimens from the King River, eighty miles 
from Port Essington, regarded them as absolutely typical of the latter place, 
a conclusion, which though probably correct, is not yet proven, and wrote : 
“ Identical with Macarthur River (N.T.) specimens, and the same as those 
from Napier Broome Bay, N.W.A., which latter Mathews has separated as 
rogersi. Those obtained on the Kirrama table-land, Cardwell, are similar to 
Territory type specimens, but, if anything, a trifle smaller. Gould’s plate 
is a perfect representation of the species. Murchison and Coongan River 
(North-west Australia proper) examples are similar to each other, and appear 
to come between flavescens and brevirostris. As shown in the R.A.O.U. e Check- 
List,’ possibly flavescens and brevirostris are separate species.” 
In view of the history hereafter given to scientific workers, comment on 
the above note would be superfluous. 
In 1838 Gould described as a short-billed Psilopus , the generic name he 
had introduced for the species he later renamed Gerygone, the present species, 
but in 1842 when he named a similar bird from Port Essington he separated 
them -with the new generic name Smicrornis. These two species were recog- 
nised for seventy years, but when I prepared my “ Reference List ” I found 
that all birds from anywhere in the north had been classed as one species, and 
all the southern ones as the other ; but many forms were confused, some of 
them being more distinct than the one originally separated. Further, the 
differences intergraded so that no species could be determined but only a 
long series of subspecies. These subspecies were quite constant and easily 
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