

(No. 30) which is still preserved in the British Museum. Later, Bloxam introduced a 

 possible source of error by calling the bird Nectarinia byronensis, after the commander 

 of H.M.S. 'Blonde,' under the impression that it was unknown; but, although 

 J. E. Gray followed Bloxam in recognizing a second species, the misapprehension was 

 soon rectified and the specific name sanguinea finally approved. The type was very 

 fortunately kept, and was identified by G. R. Gray and later by Dr. Sharpe. With 

 regard to the generic appellation, however, Professor Cabanis in 1850 rightly sepa- 

 rated the subject of our notice from the genus Drepanis, making it the type of his 

 Himatione, so called from the use of the feathers in the robes of chieftains. Helmets 

 covered with its feathers may still be seen in some museums. 



This species, with Vestiaria, in company with which it is commonly seen, is distributed 

 throughout the whole group, and its vertical range is practically identical. Its 

 principal food is honey, obtained from the flowers of the ohia (Metrosideros polymorpha), 

 while I have seen it in numbers among the mamane trees (Sophora chrysophylla) 

 in the flowering season; and though I am uncertain whether their golden-yellow 

 racemes or the small insects among their foliage were the attraction, still I have no 

 doubt that it feeds partially on the latter, which abound in all the flowers visited, 

 since I have often found insects in the stomach when dissecting specimens. Dr. Finsch, 

 on the other hand (Ibis, 1880, p. 80), states that he only found small seeds; but 

 Mr. Knudsen, whose field-knowledge of Hawaiian birds places him on an equality 

 with Dr. Finsch, expresses his belief (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 1887, p. 96) " that the 

 Apapane feeds exclusively on flower honey." I am, on the whole, of opinion that were 

 Mr. Knudsen to have added "and on insects," his would be the right view of the matter. 

 Although I did not find a nest of the Apapane, I shot a female on the 24th of May, 

 1887, at Kaawaloa in the district of Kona, in the ovary of which was an egg almost 

 ready for exclusion, a circumstance which enables me to fix approximately its breeding- 

 time, which seems to be later than that of the Iiwi, for 1 had. shot several of the 

 young of the latter before the above date. I never, however, obtained specimens of 

 the Apapane so young as those of the Iiwi, although I have many immature examples 

 in which not a trace of the crimson plumage is to be seen : in this stage, as will be 

 seen by my Plate, they differ so much from the adult (as is also the case with Vestiaria) 

 that it is not easy at first to believe that they are of the same species, and my natives 

 were quite sure that I was wrong when I told them of it. The note of the Apapane 

 is a feeble though clear tweet twice repeated, but it also has a pretty simple song 

 generally heard soon after sunrise or towards sunset. In its flight the white under 

 tail-coverts are very conspicuous and serve to easily determine it on the wing. 

 The crimson feathers were not used to any great extent in the fabrication of the well- 

 known native robes of olden times ; but there is in the Ethnological Collection 

 in the British Museum a kind of waist-covering of the black tail-plumes of the 

 domestic cock, of which the upper border — four inches in width — is composed of the 

 crimson feathers of this bird, the dimensions of this very war-like and savage-looking 

 ornament being — length 41 inches, width at the middle 18 inches. In the account of 



