572 INIr. K. C. L. Perkins — Introduction to 



hilled or alive * has no such odour. The specimens supposed 

 to possess it had no doubt been enclosed in boxes with 

 Drepanines, or when collected in the field had been placed in 

 a bag with theni; and had thus become impregnated with 

 their odour. 



This odour, as 1 have pointed out in my former notes, 

 cannot be acquired from the food, because it is found in 

 forms of such diverse habits — e. g., in Drepanorhamphus at 

 times when it is feeding solely on the nectar of flowers, 

 in weevil-eating Heterorhynchus, in Psittacirostra when it 

 is devouring the red fruit of Freycinetia, in Chloridops when 

 the sole contents of the crop are the seeds of the bastard 

 sandal. Neither the Meliphagine birds nor the Flycatchers, 

 when feeding in the same trees and on the same food as 

 Drepanines, possess any such smell. All these facts point to 

 the odour as being an ancestral character in the Drepanididse. 



In this connexion it may further be remarked that the 

 song of the thick-billed Pseudonestor is practically identical 

 with that of the various species oi Heterorhynchus, Avhich 

 have always been allowed to be Drepanines, and that 

 Telespiza, living isolated on the island of Laysan hundreds of 

 miles distant from its allies, has a song similar to both. I shall 

 not easily forget my astonishment when I first heard it on 

 passing a house in Honolulu, and found on enquiry, not 

 the expected Heterorhynchus, but Telespiza ! Possibly the 

 latter may have other notes, but the fact remains that the 

 song I heard was note for note the same as that of the former 

 species, and I heard it repeatedly. 



7. Cause of Vrugivorous Habits in the Thick- 

 hilled Drepanididoe. 



The thick-billed frugivorous Drepanids, like the purely or 

 almost purely insectivorous members of the family, have no 

 doubt assumed the habit for the same reason as the latter, 

 viz. the competition for food, rendered unusually keen from 

 the exceptionally small area of distribution. The development 

 of the beak and the loss of the elaborate sucking-tongue have 

 * The writer lias on more than one occasion had A. nobilis alive. 



