

HIMATIONE CHLOEIS. 



AMAKIHI. 



Himatione chloris, Cabanis, Mus. Hein. i. p. 99, note (1850-51) ; Bonaparte, Comptes Rendus, 

 xxxviii. p. 264 (1854) ; S. B. Wilson, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1889, p. 447; id. Ibis, 1890, p. 185. 



Drepanis (Himatione) sanguined, G. R. Gray, Cat. B. Trop. Isl. p. 9, partim (1859) ; id. Hand-list 

 B. i. p. 113, partim (1869) {nee Gmelin). 



Himatione virens, Sharpe, Cat. B. Br. Mus. x. p. 9, partim (1885) (nee Gmelin). 



The synonymy of this species presenting few complications, and its habits being, so far 

 as they are known, so similar to those of its congener, Himatione virens, little remains 

 to be said beyond that it was originally described by Professor Cabanis from specimens 

 obtained by Deppe in Oahu, to which island H. chloris is confined. I have been able 

 to compare my specimens with one in the Museum of the University of Cambridge, 

 procured by Townsend (Deppe's companion), which was submitted for determination 

 to the Professor, and was marked by him as agreeiug with his type in the Museum of 

 Berlin. 



On Oahu, in the district of Halemanu (house of the birds), this species seems to 

 frequent more especially the depths of the steep and densely wooded ravines, and loves, 

 above all trees, the gigantic Lobeliaceae — the strange foliage and great heads of the 

 purple flowers of which plants are so striking a feature of a Sandwich Island forest, 

 and one, I believe, only to be met with in these Pacific Isles. 



Description. — Adult male. Above uniform bright yellowish green, with very narrow 

 black forehead and lores, and brownish-grey wings and tail, margined with the same 

 colour as the remaining upper parts ; below golden yellow ; bill and feet blackish 

 brown. 



Dimensions. — Total length 4*5 inches, wing 2'6, tail 1-9, tarsus "75, culmen -4. 



As I have elsewhere remarked (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1889, pp. 446, 447 ; Ibis, 1890, 

 pp. 185, 186) the representative forms of Himatione chloris in the islands of Molokai 

 and Lanai are easily distinguishable from each other and also from the type, and it 

 had been my original intention to describe them as distinct species, the form from the 



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