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The following is a brief summary of Mr. R. C. L. Perkins' 

 paper on the Food Habits of the Native Hawaiian Birds. 



"The Hawaiian Birds are classified according to their food 

 habits as follows : 



( 1 ) Honey or nectar suckers : useful because follinizers. 



(2) Beneficial fruit eaters which spread the seed without in- 

 juring them, and propogate the native plants. 



(3) Harmful fruit-eating birds, which destroy seeds they eat. 



(4) Eaters of injurious insects: beneficial. 



(5) Eaters of useful insects are practically unrepresented. 



In the family Drcpaiiididac there are 34 species on the Ha- 

 waiian Islands, 12 of them feed on nectar regularly; 2 are 

 doubtful honey-eaters ; 7 rarely eat honey, yet were seen eating 

 it ; they have honey-sucking tongues and are apparently leaving 

 off the honey-sucking habit and are taking to insect eating; 

 30 species eat noxious insects, certainly all of them feed their 

 young on insects ; most of these eat spiders which may be either 

 beneficial or otherwise ; 3 are beneficial fruit eaters ; 3 are highly 

 injurious fruit or seed-eaters, yet these also eat caterpillars and 

 feed them to their young, and are thus far beneficial ; 2 species are 

 indift'erent. 



Of the four Oo, two are chiefly honey-suckers, but also eat in- 

 sects and one is chieflly an insect eater; one is extinct. Most 

 of these birds are now too rare to be of any practical value. 



Of the five thrushes, which are very fine songsters, four are 

 large fruit-eaters, but also devour insects ; the fifth is an insect- 

 eater confined to Kauai. There are three species of fly-catchers, 

 all entirely insectivorous and very beneficial. 



In a discussion on the use of insects as human food at the 

 March meeting of 1905, Dr. Cobb stated that at one time a 

 committee was appointed in Nebraska to experiment with grass- 

 hoppers for food. Although these insects were reported to be 

 palatable, their general introduction as an article of diet seems to 

 have failed. Mr. Terry reported that he had tested 'T-Cungu" 

 cake, which is made from a species of insect in the lake district 

 of Central Africa and eaten by the natives there, and said that 

 the flavor and texture suggested oatmeal. 



^Meetings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society are held 



