INTRODUCTION, xxt 



similar becoming reserve in accepting those conclusions as final. Still it seems on the 

 whole best to follow them, based as they are on Mr. Perkins's experience in the field. 

 It is a very old supposition that some of the Finch-like forms were Meliphagine, and 

 though that is now proved to be erroneous, those who accepted that view may well be 

 content to regard those forms as Drepanid ; while Mr. Sclater will be pleased to 

 find his conclusions (Ibis, 1879, p. 91) as to their relationships to Drepanis and 

 Hemignathus corroborated. On the other hand, looking to the unsatisfactory way 

 in which the Passeres are unavoidably grouped at present, some systematists may 

 demur to the removal of such a genus as Chloridops from the Finches, until a far more 

 exhaustive study of the Fringillidce and their presumed allies shall have been made. 



Leaving this question for future solution, it must here be remarked that of the species 

 attributed in the present work to the genus Himatione, H. sanguined, which is the type 

 of that genus, should in Mr. Perkins's opinion alone remain in it \ while those with 

 straight bill (II. maculata, II. montana, H. mana, and II. newtoni) — though not 

 //. parva — together with Loxops flammea, should be referred to Oreomyza 2 , and 

 those with a curved bill should be placed in a new genus Chlorodrepanis, which he thus 

 characterizes : — 



" Primaries pointed and not truncate at the apex ; nasal opercula with bristles 

 at the base and not overhung by antrorse feathers; brush tongue thin and 

 tubular; second primary a little shorter than the third ; bill curved." 



Hence we have : — Chlorodrepanis stejnegeri, C. chloris, C. chloridoides, C. kalaana, 

 C. virens, C. wilsoni ; Oreomyza bairdi, 0. flammea, 0. maculata, 0. montana, 0. mana, 

 0. newtoni. 



Himatione parva, though having a straight bill, Mr. Perkins now wishes to keep 

 apart from Oreomyza, and to place it in a genus by itself as Eothschildia parva, while 

 he would also recognize Heterorhynchus as a genus distinct from Hemignathus. On 

 the other hand he would include Chrysomitridops with Loxops, as would Mr. Rothschild, 

 and his idea of a natural arrangement of the Hrepanididceh in two groups as follows : — 



1. Drepanis, Vestiaria, Palmeria, Himatione, Ciridops. 



2. Chlorodrepanis, Eothschildia, Viridonia, Oreomyza, Loxops, Hemignathus, 



Heterorhynchus, Pseudonestor, Psittacirostra, Loxio'ides, Telespiza, Bhoda- 

 canthis, Chloridops ; 



for reasons which he thus assigns : — 



" Chlorodrepanis in reality is much more closely allied to Viridonia and Hemignathus than to Himatione, 

 the feathers of which, it may be observed, are in certain parts of very different structure. Oreomyza is at once 



1 H. freethi of the island of Laysan forming a second species. 



2 Mr. Rothschild, writing in 1893 (' Avifauna of Laysan '), and Mr. Perkins in 1895 (' Ibis *), for the most 

 part agree as to the species to be placed in this genus ; so that although most of the experience of the latter 

 dates from 1892, Mr. Eothschild was first to publish the facts. 



d 



