YELLOW-RUMPED TIT. 
I noted the nests built in the sticks of the huge nests of the Wedge-tailed Eagle 
and below that of the Whistling Eagle. I noted this bird near Currie Harbour 
on King Island, Bass Straits : they were about amongst the trees on a creek 
near the sea-coast and seemed to have the same habits as the Tasmanian Tit.” 
Mr. Edwin Ashby’s notes read : “ The Yellow-rump is almost universally 
known as the Tom-Tit. In the high New England country a few miles from 
the Queensland Border in New South Wales a small brightly coloured form was 
very common and in all suitable country that I have visited in that State, in 
Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia it has always been one of the commonest 
birds and in Western Australia in November, 1920, I found it numerous in the 
wet country that extends from Perth to the extreme South-West corner of the 
State and again it was common on the ‘ soaks ’ in the midst of the 4 sand plain ’ 
country 130 miles north of Perth. These birds on the Sand Plains seem a slightly 
smaller race than those further south. This Geobasileus feeds by preference 
on the ground, little companies working together for a while amongst the grass 
and other vegetation and then all flitting together to another spot which 
is searched in a similar manner. They are very useful in destroying insects 
and blight in our gardens near Adelaide. A pair for some years nested in the 
creepers around the verandah of my house at Blackwood and brought off three 
broods each season in the same nest commencing repairs to it within two days 
of the young leaving the nest. Isolated bushes of the prickly Kangaroo Eurz 
( Acacia armata) form a very favourite nesting site for this species. The true 
nest is a covered-in one with a hole in the side but above this is a cup-shaped 
nest the purpose of which is still unsolved, although many ingenious possible 
solutions have been suggested.” 
Mr. Tom Carter’s notes read : “ The Yellow-rumped Tit is by far the 
most common and generally distributed species of this genus throughout the 
South-West, but does not seem to occur in the Gascoyne or North-West Cape 
districts. Their bulky and often double nests, with side entrances, may be 
found in almost any tree or bush. Nests of a previous season are often repaired 
and used again. The breeding season is an extended one and eggs three or four 
in clutch. Nests with eggs or young are common from July to November.” 
Milligan writing about the birds of the extreme South-West Australia stated : 
“ These useful little birds were often to be seen in companies about the homestead 
and in the open lands. They had, I think, already brought out their first 
broods, for I heard young ones in the nest at South Perth in the middle of 
winter. Subsequently, in January, I heard young ones in the same nest, and 
saw the parent birds carrying food.” 
McClymont wrote from Tasmania : “ The Yellow-tail is a gregarious Tit, 
which prefers grassy hillsides, with a sunny exposure, near the shelter of trees 
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