Heathland Avian Mimic

[(Syd Curtis)]

In my addiction to lyrebirds I haven't quite reached the status of "expert"
- one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything
about nothing - but outside my chosen field I sometimes astound myself with
the depth of my ignorance.

So someone on birding-aus please help:

At the end of his Foreword to Ray Littlejohns' book "The Magic Voice"
(1933), Alec Chisholm points out that Lyrebirds are not Australia's only
mimics and he writes -

        "But Australia contains at least twenty other diverse species of
birds which are highly skilled at vocal imitations, and one in particular,
a heathland sprite rather smaller than a sparrow, is relatively no less
accomplished than the lyrebird."

So what is Chisholm's "heathland sprite" that mimics so well?

TIA

Syd Curtis at Hawthorne, Qld.

H Syd Curtis