252 On a new Bird from the Ilaicaiian Islands. 



nn elevation of about 2000 ft. The stomach and throat were 

 full of the ripe berries of Urera glabra, which is common in 

 the locality" {Munro). 



Mr. Munro, who has now for some years been permanently 

 resident on Lanai, writes further that though he thorou<2;hly 

 explored the forest on that island in the years 1914, 1915, 

 1916, and subsequently, he has only twice come across birds 

 that he suspects of bein<>- the same species as the one described. 

 " On March 17th, 1916, farther up the same valley, where it 

 is very densely wooded, I heard two or three birds calling to 

 one. another, the cry being less sweet and not so loud as that 

 of the Ou {Psittacirostra), and I watched one on the bare 

 branch of a tree-top a short distance away. It called regu- 

 larly at intervals and kept moving its head, stretching its 

 neck and turning on its perch without changing its ])lace on 

 the branch. It looked smaller than an Ou and more active, 

 but less so than Chlorodrepanis. The form of its bill coukl 

 not be made out, but it was not that of the latter. 



" On Aug. 12th, 1918, in a patch of dry forest on the 

 south-west side of tiie mountain, at about the same elevation 

 as that where the original specimen was obtained, I saw 

 another bird, and was near enough to note the light colouiing 

 round tlie eye, but not the form of beak. Some of its notes 

 were like thoae o^ Psittacirostra, but others new to me, espe- 

 cially a low squeak or whistle, and it was too small for that 

 bird, not so thick-set, and with a very short tail. So I feel 

 sure it was the other.'^ 



As so few specimens have been seen by so skilled a collector, 

 the bird must be a great rarity, but its discoverer hopes that 

 it may increase in numbers, as the forest is now rigidly pro- 

 tected and rapidly recovering. When I collected on Lanai 

 in 1893 and subsequently the forest was in a deplorable 

 condition, being rapidly destroyed by countless wild goats, 

 and it was also full of wild pigs and cats that had run jvild. 

 The latter, as I liave elsewhere recorded, were destroying 

 native birds wholesale. Only on the sheer sides of the 

 mountain and on a very small part of the narrow backbone 

 was the forest in a natural condition. Neither Lord Roth- 

 schild's collectors nor myself ever found a specimen of this 

 bird. 



Tlie specimen obtained was in a partially moulting con- 

 dition, but the wing-feathers are fully grown. The lack of 

 adaptation of mandible and maxilla recalls the condition in 

 Iltterorlujnchus loilsoni, but it is much more exaggerated. 



Paignton, 

 Jan. 7tli, 1919. 



