The _Sericornis osculans_ inhabits South Australia, where it frequents
underwoods and scrubby places, the bottom of dry water-courses, gulleys,
&c.; it is naturally shy and retiring in its habits, and evades pursuit
by creeping beneath the herbage and making its exit on the other side.
It is most nearly allied to the _S. frontalis_, and is intermediate in
size between that species and the _S. humilis_; from the former it
differs in having at all times numerous longitudinal blotches of black
on the throat, and from the latter in these spots being much more
distinct than in that species. I have seen specimens in which the yellow
tint which pervades the centre of the abdomen has given place to grey or
greyish white, as shown in the centre figure of the accompanying Plate;
but I have never found the tail tipped with white, as in _S. maculata_
and _S. lævigaster_.
The sexes present the usual characteristic of the genus, in the absence
of any black mark on the lores of the female, which are similar to the
other parts of the body.
All the upper surface, wings and tail dark brown, all but the two centre
feathers of the latter crossed by an obscure band of black near the
extremity; spurious wing-feathers black, margined with white; lores
black, above which on each side a patch of white, continued in a fine
line over the eye; throat and centre of the abdomen greyish white in
some and yellowish white in others, marked with a few oblong black spots
on the throat.
The female is somewhat smaller in size, and has the lores brown instead
of black.
The figures represent two males and a female of the natural size, the
upper figure being that of the female.
[Illustration:
SERICORNIS FRONTALIS.
_J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith._ _Hullmandel & Walton Imp._
]
SERICORNIS FRONTALIS.
White-fronted Sericornis.
_Acanthiza frontalis_, Vig. & Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p.
226.—Gould, Syn. Birds of Australia, Part IV.
_Sericornis parvulus_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 134;
and in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part IV. female.
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