BROWN TIT. 
the pusilla of our Mt. Lofty Hills. The notes were so distinct from those of 
A. pusilla and so unfamiliar that I on more than one occasion shot a bird thinking 
that it was a different species. A further difference was found in the eye, which 
was deep yellow shading to reddish orange, whereas in pusilla it is I think always 
deep red. I am inclined to think that we are justified in giving Acanthiza 
diemenensis Gould specific rank. I have found it very numerous in all parts of 
Tasmania I have visited : its notes are quite distinct from those of pusilla 
though its habits are very similar. Now as to Acanthiza ewingii Gould, although 
this bird is so similar to diemenensis in plumage that care is required to separate 
them, many of its habits are very distinct. While diemenensis is found all over 
the flat open scrub country throughout Tasmania I have only met with ewingi 
in very wet localities, mostly near the summit of the Mountains. On Mt. 
Wellington, near Hobart, I have only found it in the zone of Tree Ferns or similar 
spots to that inhabited by the Pink-breasted Robin. I also have collected it 
in the wet ranges near Ringarooma in North-east Tasmania, and found it nesting 
in the gorge of the River Don near Latrobe in the North-West of the Island 
where its nest was placed in a bush hanging right over the swift-running water. 
It was strikingly different from the usual nest of diemenensis, being a model 
of care and finish. Again the notes of this bird are different from those of 
its near ally, diemenensis; only in October last (1920) while near the Springs 
high up Mt. Wellington I heard a loud unfamiliar note repeated several times ; 
it was made by a bird hidden from my view in low dense bushes three or four 
feet in height. After a good deal of manoeuvring I at length caught sight of 
a little dark-coloured bird working for insects amongst the roots and stems of 
the thick brushwood and managed to shoot it with a snapshot. I was most 
surprised to find that it was A. ewingii. The loud distinctive cry led me to expect 
quite a strange bird. Undoubtedly its outward characteristics closely assimilate 
to those of diemenensis but I am persuaded that they are both good species.” 
Under the name Acanthiza pyrrhopygia Mr. Thos. P. Austin has written 
me from Cobbora, New South Wales, that the bird so-called is “ Sparingly 
met with in thick scrubs, either single birds or pairs associating with small 
flocks of the Buff-rumped species, invariably met with feeding upon the ground, 
as approached they gradually work further away with short flights from bush 
to ground and so on until they are out of sight. This bird escaped my notice 
until recently and am now trying to pay more attention to them, but owing 
to the birds being apparently rare, and the rough scrubby class of country in 
which they are found, I have so far discovered very little about their habits.” 
Captain S. A. White’s notes read : “ A. p. diemenensis is very plentiful in 
some districts. I have found them in the low scrub as well as in the timbered 
country of Tasmania. A. p. zietzi is very plentiful in the low scrub in some parts 
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