18S7.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 91 



SYNONYMY. 



1858. — ?Tcenioptera obscura AGASSI'S, U. S. Expl. Exp. Mam. Orn., p. 155 {nee Gmel.). 

 —Dole, Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., xii, 1869, p. 300, Extr., p. 7.— Id., 

 Hawaiian Almanac, 1879, p. 48. 



Cassin haviug one specimen of true Ph. ohscura and one of the present 

 form, or at least very closely allied to it, evidently guessed at the first 

 one being the male and the latter one the female, and unhesitatingly 

 described them as such. However, we have not only Knudsen's asser- 

 tion that the two specimens of Ph. myadesUna from Kauai are male and 

 female, but the naturalists of the Challenger expedition collected 

 both sexes of the typical Ph. ohscura in Hawaii, of which Mr. Sharpe 

 (Cat. B. Brit. Mus., IV, p. 5) remarks that the female is '*■ similar in 

 color to the male." This apparently disposes of any theory of these 

 birds being dift'erent sexes of the same species. 



The specimens collected by Mr. Knudsen are quite alike, except that 

 No. 110042 shows unmistakable signs of being in immature plumage, 

 for the great upper wing-coverts, as well as those of median row and 

 the inner secondaries, have a subapical semilunar spot of bufiy white 

 terminally bordered by a blackish fringe. 



Description {U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 110041. Kauai, Haumiian Archi- 

 pelago. V. Knudsen coll.) — Entire upper surface of a dull hair-brown 

 with an olive tinge ; sides of head dull tawny, the feathers fringed 

 with dusky; lower surface of a light smoky gray, somewhat motley in 

 appearance, caused by the dusky fringes to the feathers, lighter on 

 throat and fading into nearly pure white on abdomen and under tail- 

 coverts, while breast and flanks are more olive gray, the latter strongly 

 tinged with the color of the back; tibiae of a brownish olive gray; gen- 

 eral color of the wings above like the back, but the edges of the outer 

 webs of the quills more russet, except the edges of the second to fifth 

 primaries beyond the sinuation, which are of a grayish tinge ; the base 

 of the inner primaries and secondaries in the outer webs bright russet, 

 forming an oblique angular band across the wing followed by a similar 

 black one caused by the restriction of the russet edge for a distance of 

 about 7™"" from the bright russet base ; basal third of inner web of 

 secondaries abruptly creamy white, this color also invading the bases 

 of the inner webs of the primaries, except the two outermost ones, but 

 in such a manner as to become gradually narrower and not reaching 

 the shaft while extending farther up along the edge ; great under wing- 

 coverts dark ashy, the smaller ones and the axillaries like the under 

 parts of the body ; middle tail-feathers colored like the back, the re- 

 mainder blackish, broadly edged in the outer web with the color of the 

 back or slightly more russet, except the outer pair which has the entire 

 outer web light isabella-gray ; three outer tail-feathers with a white 

 mark at tip, those of the two outer pairs forming a long and narrow 

 wedge-shaped spot in the inner web along the shaft, while on the third 

 pair the white mark is reduced to a small speck in the inner web. Bill 

 horny black; feet dark horny brown. 



