70 Director s Annual Report. 



or eight or ten will, not iufrequentlx', fly from the forests at the 

 edge of these precipices, thousands of feet above the valley below, 

 and with little concern, steer a course that will take them in a 

 direct line as far as the eye can follow them. At nightfall they are 

 to be seen returning from their feeding grounds lower down on the 

 mountains or in the valleys flying swiftly and dire(5lly in the higher 

 altitudes to roost. This daily migration over open land or from 

 place to place is a very strongly marked characteristic of this bird. 



A number of nests — but unfortunately no eggs — were secured. 

 I am convinced that the nesting season cannot be well defined. 

 In substantiation of this opinion, I find that in the series of skins 

 colle(5led, two are immature, while perhaps five times that number 

 of brownish-colored 3^oung were noted among the hundreds of 

 adults seen at close range. This fact, coupled with the mating 

 performances and the enlarged testes and ovaries examined, w^ould 

 indicate that on this island, at least, an occasional late brood is 

 reared. 



The series of eight nests do not var}' in material or location 

 from those elsewhere described, to a degree sufficient to warrant 

 their redescription. However, a deserted nest (Mus. No. 4683) 

 taken from twenty feet up in a moss-covered Ohia tree which was 

 growing in the heart of the Puualu forest, is somewhat extraordi- 

 nary in that it has returned to the original elements of which it 

 was composed in situ, leaving a replica of itself in living green 

 moss. The strucfture is of some years standing evidentl5\ Old 

 enough at least, so that the moss and sticks of which it was com- 

 posed have had time to almost completely disintegrate. That 

 portion wdiich remains has, in the meantime, become completely 

 covered with living moss, so that the shape and general appear- 

 ance of the nest is retained with just enough of the old structure 

 remaining to account for its form and history. 



Chlorodrepanis kalaana (Wilson). 



Without here entering into a discussion of the very minute 

 characflers that have been used to separate this species from the 

 very closely allied forms from Maui, Kauai and Oahu, it will be 

 sufficient to say that the series of seventeen birds secured on Molo- 

 kai, confirm rather than disprove the conclusions formerly arrived 



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