Report of a Mission to Citiam. 41 



queiitly made this sound at night. These l)irds are much hunted 

 by the natives for food, and one would think that they would be 

 very easily seen because of their bright coloring. Such, however, 

 is not the case, for when among the green leaves of the breadfruit 

 trees, which seem to be their favorite haunts, their coloring har- 

 monizes so well with the leaves that they are ver}' difficult to see. 

 Their food consists of wild berries and fruits, all the stomachs con- 

 taining seeds of the Linovia trifoliata. The general color above is 

 a bright green ; crown, forehead, and spot at the base of the lower 

 mandible purple-red, margined behind with 3-ellowish ; primaries 

 and secondaries green with a glossy reflection, the inner webs 

 purplish, the secondaries margined with a slight line of yellowish ; 

 wing coverts green, the greater coverts margined with yellowish ; 

 scapulars purplish, margined with yellowish green ; chin and 

 throat a yellowish white ; sides of head and neck grayish green ; 

 breast greenish, with the feathers tipped with pearly gray ; a bright 

 purple patch on the middle of lower breast, surrounded by a zone 

 of greenish and orange ; bell}' orange, greenish along the sides ; 

 vent and tip of feathers on thigh j^ellowish ; under tail coverts yel- 

 lowish orange ; upper tail feathers green, wnth a broad yellowish 

 gray distal band margined narrowly with yellow ; under coloring 

 of wings and tail gray, the tail feathers showing white markings 

 on the inner webs near the end ; under wing coverts gra}' with a 

 slight mingling of green ; bill a pea green ; feet and tarsus a dark 

 gray with a tint of purplish ; iris gold yellow. I find no difference 

 in the coloring of the sexes. Six .specimens selected at random 

 give the following measurements: — 



The spread of the wdngs from tip to tip is about 15.25, and the 

 depth of the bill at the nostrils is about .17. The immature, No. 

 9498, has no red on the head or crown ; general upper coloring 

 green with the feathers edged with yellowish ; no dark spot on the 

 breast ; feathers of the belly yellowish ; bill grayish ; feet fle.sh color 

 with a tint of pink ; eye light hazel. 



Two nests, each containing one egg, were found. These 

 were crude flat .strucflures, construdled of twigs about the size of 

 a knitting needle, very loosely put together and placed on the top 

 of a small branch of the Triphasia aiirantiola, eight or ten feet 

 from the ground, and how the egg is kept from rolling out when 

 the wind blows is more than I can understand. (See Fig. 2.) The 

 eggs are pure white and look like the eggs of the domestic pigeon. 

 Their size was i .31 X .85 and i .12X .80. Hab. Guam, Saipan, Rota. 



