58 HAWAIIAN BIRDS. 



they were derived, and it is possible that they may have come 

 from some other part of the island. 



No collector has met with the species recently, save a single 

 individual shot for Mr. Palmer by a native on Mt. Kohala in Feb- 

 ruary, 1892. From the fact that the principal food of the bird (as 

 the natives say and as its name implies) was derived from the 

 ha wane palm, there would seem to be a reasonable hope that the 

 bird may yet exist in the more elevated districts of the interior 

 where alone this palm grows in abundance. However, even if the 

 species is still extant is must be in very small numbers. To all 

 intents and purposes the hawane finch may be looked upon as 

 extinct, and as furnishing another melancholy example of the 

 mysterious fate which has overtaken so many Hawaiian birds. 



Description. — Adult. Crown black, shading into grey and white on the. 

 nape and sides of the neck; back brownish; lower breast, rump, upper 

 tail-coverts, median and part of lesser coverts scarlet; throat and breast 

 black, as also the tail, primaries and much of the secondaries. 



Loxops coccinea (Gmelin). Akepeuie. 



The members of this genus are the smallest of all Hawaiian birds 

 and are among the most beautiful and most highly colored. This 

 particular species is found only on the island of Hawaii where, in 

 most districts, it is rather rare. In two regions only have I found 

 the bird comparatively common, in the mixed ohia and koa forest 

 on the north side of the Wailuku river at an altitude of some 

 1,800 feet upwards ; and in the koa forest of Kau. 



The bird is extremely partial to the koa .tree, and its great 

 rarity throughout the deep forests of Olaa is doubtless due to the 

 general absence there of koa. The soft, small insects and cater- 

 pillars which constitute its chief food are almost entirely derived 

 from the foliage of this acacia and from the foliage of the naio 

 and mamane. 



All the species of the genus Loxops possess symmetrical bills, 

 the tip of the lower mandible having a decided twist to the 

 right or left, as the case may be. No one, familiar with the 

 curious crossed bills of the crossbills, and who has seen the birds 

 manipulate pine seeds with these scissor-like instruments, could 



