/vT 



PALMEEIA DOLII. 



Himatione dolei (err. typogr.), S. B. Wilson, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1891, p. 166. 



Pahneria mirabilis, Bothschild, Ibis, 1893, p. 113; Bull. Br. Orn. Club, i. p. xvi (1893). 



Palmeria dolei, Bothschild, Bull. Br. Orn. Club, ii. p. ix (15 Nov., 1893). 



In the month of July 1888, while exploring the district of Kula in Maui, I shot, in 

 company with an example of Himatione sanguinea, a bird — apparently of the same 

 family — which was similar in its habits, but was much darker in plumage. It was 

 obviously young, and for a long while I hesitated to describe it, hoping to get another 

 and more mature specimen. As time, however, went on and none appeared, I ventured 

 to specify it as Himatione dolii and so left it. But when, on visiting Cambridge on 

 October 26th, 1893, I saw the series of specimens of Palmeria recently obtained in 

 Molokai by Mr. Perkins, I at once recognized that the younger examples, though 

 considerably larger, agreed essentially with my bird ; the absence of the crest, which is 

 so remarkable a feature in the adult, and the fact that Mr. Rothschild referred his 

 Palmeria to the family Meliphagidce, having combined to prevent my discovering 

 the identity of the two birds sooner. That gentleman, I believe, made the discovery 

 previously, when he obtained the loan of my specimen for comparison, but he did 

 not inform me of the fact, leaving me to infer it from his note in the ' Bulletin ' of 

 the British Ornithologists' Club, as follows : — 



"Mr. Scott Wilson, in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society ' for 1891 (p. 166), 

 described, under the name of Himatione dolei a bird from Mauai [sic] which has not 

 since been identified *. Through the kindness of Mr. Wilson I have been enabled to 

 examine his type ; and I found, to my astonishment, that it was a very young specimen 

 of the bird which I had named Palmeria mirabilis, although no one could possibly 

 have made this out from the description. As the type, therefore, proves beyond 

 doubt that Wilson's bird is merely the young of my Palmeria, and as the latter 

 genus is very distinct and has nothing to do with Himatione, being a genus of the 

 Meliphagidce near Chcetoptila and not one of the Drepanididce, the name of this peculiar 

 bird must stand henceforth as Palmeria dolei (Wils.)." 



In this note Mr. Rothschild lays great stress, as he had done in his original 

 description, upon his new genus belonging to the Meliphagidas ; but herein I believe 

 him to be wholly mistaken, for Dr. Gadow has favoured me with the following 

 remarks : — 



1 I am unable to understand the meaning of this remark, unless Mr. Rothschild wished to suggest that I 

 had described a species which did not exist. 



2b 



