118 Mr. R. C. L. Perkins on 



modified species on the different islands are so nearly the 

 same that it would be a mere repetition to detail those of 

 each particular species. 



Of the Fringillidae (nearly all of which are peculiar to the 

 Island of Hawaii) I have already given some account of the 

 habits ; but there remains one, — Pseudonestor xanthopkrys, 

 — peculiar to the Island of Mani, which is perhaps the most 

 remarkable form of all. It is local and rare, and seems to 

 be confined to the highest forest on Haleakala, at an eleva- 

 tion of some 5000 feet above sea-level. Being very tame 

 and apparently unwilling to fly far, I had on several occa- 

 sions excellent opportunities to learn something of its habits, 

 and especially of the use of its curiously formed and exceed- 

 ingly powerful beak. The bird has an evident predilection 

 for the koa trees [Acacia falcata), and it is from these that 

 it mainly gets its food. This consists of the larvae of a highly 

 peculiar endemic genus of Longicorn beetles {Clytarlus) , 

 of which there are in the islands a considerable number of 

 species, nearly all of them attached to the different species 

 of native acacias. The larger ones usually burrow in the 

 main trunks, the smaller in the limbs and twigs above. It 

 is on the larvae of the latter that Pseudonestor feeds and in 

 procuring them has developed the large hooked beak, the 

 powerful jaw-muscles, and heavy skull, which constitute its 

 chief peculiarities. It may be observed that the twigs in 

 which the Clytarli have their burrows are not generally 

 rotten, but dry, and of excessive hardness, often surpassing 

 in this respect the still living and unaffected branches. The 

 bird is sluggish, in its movements parrot-like in the extreme, 

 especially in the varied hanging attitudes that it assumes, 

 while the similarity is still further increased by the shape of 

 its beak. 



Those that I saw in the act of feeding were generally 

 clinging to the under sides of the thin branches or twigs, 

 the head raised above the upper surface ; the point of the 

 curved maxilla was thrust into the burrow, the short man- 

 dible opposed thereto, and pressed against the side or under 

 surface of the twig, and the burrow opened out by sheer 



