DROMAZOGNATHA—DRONGO 167 
which it was destroyed for the sake of its rich yellow feathers, 
used in former days to decorate the state robes of the chiefs.+ 
Specimens were brought to England by the companions of Cook on 
his last voyage, when the Sandwich Islands were discovered, and 
one of them exists in the Museum of Vienna, while other examples 
are to be seen in Honolulu, Paris, Leyden, and Cambridge ; but 
probably not more than half a dozen have been preserved. Nearly 
allied to this species is the beautiful Scarlet Creeper of Latham, 
Vestiaria coccinea, which also provided feathers for the 
adornment of the natives, but has escaped the fate of its A= 
relative, being still one of the most characteristic birds 7 SS 
of the islands; and to the same Family belong several 
other genera, among which Hemignathus, with its 
upper mandible in some species monstrously prolonged beyond the 
lower, is very remarkable (see Wilson and Evans, Birds of the Sand- 
wich Islands). 
DROMAOGNATH 4, the first Suborder of Carinatx, according 
to Prof. Huxley’s taxonomy (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, pp. 425, 456), 
consisting of the Family 7inamidex (TINAMOU), or Order Crypturi as 
some would have it. These birds have a completely Struthious 
palate, with a very broad vomer meeting in front with the broad 
maxillo-palatal plates as in Dromxus (EMEU), while, behind, it 
receives the posterior extremities of the palatals and the anterior 
ends of the pterygoids, which thus have a Ratite conformation. 
VESTIARIA. 
(After Swainson.) 
DRONGO, a native name of the Hdolius forficatus of Madagascar 
which has been not only adopted into various European languages, 
but also used generally for the allied species, several of which are 
referred to distinct genera, as Bhringa, Chaptia, Chibia, Dicrurus, 
Dissemurus, Melanornis, and so forth, and inhabit Africa, Asia, the 
Eastern Archipelago, and 
Australia. The Drongos, 
known as “ King-Crows ” 
to Anglo-Indians, are 
commonly placed as a 
Dicrurus. (After Swainson.) subfamily among the 
Laniide (SHRIKE); but 
are fully entitled, so far as the groups of Passeres are concerned, to 
rank as a Family, Dicruride. Their colour when adult is almost 
‘ Its native name seems to have been Mamo, which was thence applied to 
the gorgeous mantles beset with its golden feathers. As the species became rare, 
recourse was had for this purpose to the yellow feathers of a very different bird, 
the 0-0, the Acrulocercus nobilis of modern ornithologists, belonging, as Dr. 
Gadow has shewn, to the wholly-distinct Family Meliphagide# (HoNEY-SUCKER). 
Cf. Wilson and Evans, op. cit. 
