Description of a New Acanthiza.
By A. J. Campbell.
Acanthiza magnirostris (Large-billed Tit), n. sp.
Upper surface olive-brown; forehead cinnamon-brown, each feather having a crescent-shaped mark of a brighter colour at the extremity, and tipped with dark brown; upper tail coverts reddish or rufous-brown; tail marked with a band of dark brown near the extremity; cheeks, throat, and chest whitish, each feather centred and edged with dark brown or black; rest of the under surface light olive-brown, darker on the flanks and under tail coverts; bill dark brown; feet brownish or fuscous. Length, 4.25; culmen, .45; wing, 2.0; tail, 1.6; tarsus, .7.
Acanthiza magnirostris has more of the black and white mottled under surface than A. diemenensis, and thus more resembles A. pusilla in this respect, but may be easily separated from both these birds by the great size of its bill.
Four specimens (two being young) of the new species were collected by Mr. A. G. Campbell on King Island last November. For further remarks see his article, "The Birds of King Island," in this issue, page 207.
He has also brought under my notice another Tit, of which unfortunately he was only able to procure a single specimen—an adult, however. It differs from the three species of Tits before-mentioned by its more slender tarsi and wings, but conspicuously by the absence of the light crescent-shaped marks on the brownish (rufous-brown) feathers of the forehead, and by the white feathers of the cheeks, chest, &c., having the centre only black, and not also edged with that colour as in the other species. Length, 4.0; culmen, .3; wing, 2.1; tail, 1.6; tarsus, .85. By this diagnosis I strongly suspect the stranger to be a re-discovery of Gould's long-lost Acanthiza ewingii ("Birds of Australia," vol. iii., pi. 55). If not, and pending the receipt of more material, I venture to provisionally name the bird A. rufifrons, or the King Island Tit.