162 Bird~Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
Family: Xenieidae 
There is no representative of this family in Britain, and only 
one in New Zealand: 
Acanthidositta chloris the rifleman titipounamu 
Male—Green above, wing-feathers dark brown edged with 
green, a white line over the eye; below, white, tinged with 
yellow on the flanks; tail black with a yellowisli-white tip; 
eve dark brown. Female—Brownish-white, streaked with 
dark brown above; below white. This is the smallest bird of 
New Zealand, its total length being 3 in., of which the tail is a 
quarter of an inch. It is sometimes called a wren, and is 
usually seen in pairs, flying low in jerky feeble flight, or 
creeping among the lichens and mosses that clothe the stems 
and branches of the bush trees. 
Eggs .—Three to five; white and glossy; almost round, being 
a little over half an inch in length, half an inch in breadth. 
Nest .—In holes of trees or among roots; Potts (Tr., Vol. 2, 
1870, p. 57) noted one built in a roll of bark that hung sus¬ 
pended in a thicket of convolvulus. 
It has a chirping, continuous note, that does not often 
blossom into song. It is very highly pitched, hardly louder 
than the faint chirping of a cricket, but not at all shrill, except 
when the bird puts more energy into it, when it is inclined to 
become almost rasping like the cricket’s chirr. The note is 
uttered when the bird is alone, as well as when there are two 
or more together. It moves with flicking wings from spray to 
spray, opening its bill a little at each note; but so quickly that, 
partly also obscured by the bird’s constant motion, the move¬ 
ment of the bill can hardly be seen. The note, which may be 
broken, as in (1), or more continuous as in (2), is at times 
vocalized tit it, or tutut ; and is often thus sounded in twos tutut, 
tutut, as the bird runs up the bark of the trees. The effect is 
curious when the bird is running up a vine in its jerky fashion: 
it is tutut, and a little jerk upwards: tutut, and another jerk of 
