DARK BROWN TIT. 
yards is taken, and the bird dwells for a moment on hovering wings before it 
drops into the low bush, and immediately disappears. Food. — Insect life 
constitutes two-thirds of the food, small seeds and vegetable diet making up 
the balance. Upon examination of one bird’s stomach it was found to contain 
eight large green bugs, as well as three ground-beetles and some small seeds. 
Note. — When feeding, a short, low, chirping sound is made, but when resting 
in the low bush the bird will give a very pleasing half -twittering and half -warbling 
song, not of long duration, and very low and soft. When alarmed the bird 
becomes silent.” 
A little earlier Mr. F. E. Parsons had given a similar account in The South 
Australian Ornithologist which agrees very closely with the one above quoted. 
When I first received this new bird I described it as : 
Acanthiza iredalei hedleyi. 
“ Differs from A. i. morgani in having a much lighter rump and darker upper- 
surface. Meningie, South Australia.” 
A little later Captain S. A. White sent me a new species of Acanthiza, 
which I described and named : 
Acanthiza rosince 
writing : “ The type of Mr. North’s Geobasileus australis , collected at Woodside, 
South Australia, by Mr. Edwin Ashby, is now before me. The above new 
species was collected by Captain S. A. White, about twenty miles north of 
Adelaide. It differs from A. r. australis North, in being much darker above, 
having no rufous on the forehead, and in having a very narrow buff rump : 
the throat has the feathers white, fringed with brown, rest of under-surface 
brown, lighter down the middle of the belly.” 
In the preparation of my 1913 “ List ” I recognised the affinities of these 
two birds and the distinction from A. iredalei and placed them in Geobasileus, 
thus : \\ 
Geobasileus hedleyi hedleyi 
South-east of South Australia. 
Geobasileus hedleyi rosince 
South Australia (near Adelaide). 
When F. E. Howe wrote up his “ Review of the Acanthizce ,” a most 
excellent account, he records : “ Geobasileus hedleyi Mathews occurs in the 
South-east of South Australia and a subspecies (G. h. rosince) near Adelaide, 
South Australia, but of this species ornithologists in Australia know little or 
nothing.” 
Thereupon Captain S. A. White published a coloured plate and account 
of its habits, apologising for previous non-publication as he had sent his field- 
notes to me for this Work. 
VOL. ix« 
481 
