THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
When nesting it always gives away the situation by noisy protests when anyone 
comes near, but at other times it is full of curiosity and will come to within a 
few feet of the intruder.” 
This suggests that the type locality suggested for Vigors and Horsfield’s 
specimen, viz., Sydney, New South Wales, may be confirmed by a small series 
showing growth stages as hereafter noted. 
The type of Acanthiza frontalis is now preserved in the British Museum 
and is an immature specimen, now in very poor condition. When I compiled 
my “Reference List” I rejected it as applicable to the present species, 
but as it was a form of the present group, tentatively applied it to Legge’s form 
“ gularis .” I was induced to this course as Vigors and Horsfield had some 
birds from the Kent Group and I had no bird exactly agreeing with the type 
specimen. Since then I have received as a present, the type of gularis and 
found it was referable to the humilis series and not to the frontalis form with 
which alone Legge had compared it. I therefore reinstated frontalis for the group 
previously associated with it and have designated “ New South Wales (Sydney)” 
as the type locality. I herewith give my varied attempts to discover the truth 
about this species, but am confident that the results are not final as these little 
birds vary constantly in every locality. The authorities at the British Museum 
have been no less puzzled than Gould was, and Gould’s specimens preserved in 
that collection show his confusion whenever he received specimens ; these have 
been labelled two or three times differently. Thus specimens from Mount 
Gambier were first labelled “ new species near humilis ” then frontalis, and then 
? osculans and left at that. Most of the fairly typical osculans were labelled 
frontalis and sometimes this was not altered while the Cape York birds he called 
minimus were at first called frontalis and then Icevigaster so that notwithstanding 
the clearness of his early published accounts nearly every additional form 
perplexed him. In the same way the British Museum authorities labelled the 
bird first “ osculans ” then “ frontalis ” and vice versa, and now simply put them 
away in the cabinets as “ Sericornis sp. undetermined.” Such indecision on 
the part of experts is my apology for my own attempts. I might add that 
at the present time the only birds included with the type of frontalis are 
Cape York birds, all the others being called osculans and Icevigaster. 
When I prepared my “ Reference List ” I concluded that Gould’s species 
osculans was a form of maculata, and that frontalis was not the correct name 
for this species. I therefore used Gould’s parvulus as the specific name and 
admitted six subspecies, viz. : — 
Sericornis parvula parvula Gould. 
New South Wales, Victoria. 
Sericornis parvula harterti Mathews. 
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