ACANTHIZA PUSILLA.
Little Brown Acanthiza.
Sylvia pusilla, Lath. Ind. Orn. Supp., p. lvi.
Motacilla pusilla, White’s Journ., pl. in p. 257.
Bec-fin, Temm. Man. d’Orn. 2nd edit., tom. i. p. lxviii.
Dwarf Warbler, Lath. Gen. Syn. Supp., vol. ii. p. 251.—Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. x. p. 647.—Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. vii. p. 134.
Acanthiza pusilla, Vig. & Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 227, note.
The present bird is very generally dispersed over New South Wales, where it inhabits the brushes, thickets and gardens. It is most nearly allied to the A. Diemenensis, but may be distinguished from that species by its more diminutive size, by its much shorter bill and smaller tail. It is an active prying little bird, and spends much of its time amid the smaller leafy branches of the trees, from among which it collects its insect food: the tail is generally carried above the line of the body. The nest is of a dome-shaped form and is constructed of fine dried grasses and hairy fibres of bark, intermingled and bound together with the hairy cocoons of a species of Lepidopterous insect, and lined with feathers. The eggs are four or five in number, of a beautiful pearly white, sprinkled and spotted with fine specks of reddish brown, forming in some instances a zone near the larger end; their medium length is eight lines and a half by six lines in breadth.
The sexes are so precisely similar in outward appearance, that dissection must be resorted to to distinguish the one from the other.
Forehead buff, each feather edged with brown; all the upper surface and wings brown, tinged with olive; tail reddish olive, crossed near the tip by a narrow band of black; throat and chest greyish white, each feather margined with black, giving that part a mottled appearance; flanks, abdomen and under tail-coverts buff; irides brownish red; bill dark brown; feet brown.
The Plate represents two individuals of the natural size.