64 Director's Annual Report. 
whistle of five or six clear notes, which I was only partially able 
to reproduce. The bird, however, came nearer and finally ht in 
the thick branches of a tree fifty feet or sobelow me. In my haste 
to get down out of the tree I was in, some small limbs gave way, 
and I came clattering down quite a distance before I was able to 
regain my footing. That the disturbance had frightened the Hoa 
I felt quite certain, and was therefore agreeably surprised to find 
that through it all it had not moved from the tree where it had 
first lit. It seemed to be willing to be studied, an opportunity for 
which I was exceedingly grateful. 
This bird, as well as the two former specimens, confined its 
range to the undergrowth, several times coming down to within 
three or four feet of the ground. At no time did it make a long 
flight or alight on the top of the trees. As it was raining all the 
while the bird was especially active in preening and shaking its 
feathers. ‘The trees and vines were everywhere covered with thick 
wet moss, and although the bird hopped about from branch to 
branch, carefully inspecting each limb, I did not see it catch any 
insects, or even probe into the moss. Hopping from tree to tree, 
it worked its way around the head of the little side valley, up 
which it had come in answer to my call, to where a large purple- 
flowered lobelia was in profuse blossom, and began to feed. The 
ease and grace with which the feat was acomplished was indeed 
interesting, and left no doubt in my mind as to one of the probable 
causes of the remarkable development of the tongue and bill. 
The tongue was inserted with great precision, up to the nostrils, 
in the flower, while the bird balanced itself on the branches, as- 
suming almost every imaginable attitude in its operations. In all 
three of the birds secured, the crown was smeared with the sticky 
purplish white pollen of this lobelia. I had a preconceived idea 
that the bird would also feed on the flowers of the wild banana. 
This conjecture I was not able to prove or disprove by my ob- 
servations, further than that in each case no bananas were to be 
seen in the valleys below or anywhere in the vicinity where the 
birds were secured. 
The third specimen, like the two preceding it proved to be a 
male, in perfect plumage. The bodies of the last two and the 
stomach of the first one—its body being badly mangled— are pre- 
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