

HIMATIONE VIKENS. 



AMAK1HI 1 . 



" Olive-green Creeper/' Latham, Gen, Synops. i. p. 740 (1782). 



Certhia virens, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 475 (1788) ; Latham, Ind. Orn. p. 290 (1787) ; Donndorff, 



Orn. Beytr. i. p. 644 (1794) ; Shaw, Gen. Zool. viii. p 232 (1812) ; Tiedemann, Anat. 



und Naturgesch. Vog. ii. p. 431 (ex Insulis Amicis !) (1814). 

 ? " L'Heoro-taire vert-olive," male, Vieillot, Ois. Dores, ii. p. 129, pi. lxvii. (1802) \ 

 "Le Soui-manga verdatre," Virey (Sonnini), Hist. Nat. Buffon, Ois. xvii. p. 107 (1804-5). 

 Melithreptus virens (partim?), Vieillot, N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xiv. p. 330 (1817); id. Encycl. 



Method, p. 607 (1823). 

 "Crimson Honey-eater" ? , Latham, Gen. Hist. B. iv. p. 200 (1822). 

 1 Nectarinia flava, Bloxam, Voy. 'Blonde/ p. 249 (1826), "'Amakee." 

 ? Drepanis flava, J. E. Gray, Zool. Miscell. p. 12 (1831) ; Hartlauh, Arch. f. Naturgesch. 1852, 



i. p. 110 {partim) ; id. Joura. f. Orn. 1854, p. 170 ; Dole, Proc. Bost. Soc. N. H. 1869, p. 298 • 



id. Hawaiian Alman. 1879, p. 45. 

 Phyllornis tonganensis, Lesson, Rev. Zool. 1840, p. 165 ! 



Phyllornis virens (Vieill.), G. R. Gray, Gen. B. p. 124 (1846) — erased id. op. cit. App. p. 6. 

 Drepanis sanguinea (partim), G. R. Gray, Gen. B. p. 96 (1847). 

 Drepanis (Himatione) sanguinea, ? , G. R. Gray, Cat. B. Trop. IsL p. 8, partim (1859) ; id. Hand-1. 



B. i. p. 113, partim (1869). 

 Himatione sanguinea, Reichenbach, Handb. sp. Orn. p. 255 {partim), pi. 562. fig. 3833 (1853). 

 ? Himatione flava, Reichenbach, ut supra, p. 255, partim (1853). 

 Drepanis flava, Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, p. 348 {qu. Bloxam?); id. Voy. ' Challenger/ 



p. 95 (1881) {qu. Bloxam?). 

 Himatione virens, Sharpe, Cat. B. Br. Mus. x. p. 9, partim (1885) ; Wilson, Ibis, 1890, p. 184 ; 



Perkins, Ibis, 1893, p. 105. 



This curve-billed species from the Island of Hawaii has, as may be seen from the 

 above, a long list of synonyms; but little information was until lately forthcoming 

 concerning it, as the majority of writers who mentioned it in their works took 

 their facts from the original description of Latham, in which it was named the 

 " Olive-green Creeper." Gmelin's Certhia virens is, of course, but the same in 

 Latinized form, while the two specimens figured by Vieillot must be referred here 

 with some hesitation. Forty years after he first described it, Latham in the ' General 

 History of Birds ' gave it as the female of the Crimson Honey-eater ; G. R. Gray 

 subscribing to the same error by placing it under Drepanis {Himatione) sanguinea at 

 a still later date. There remains to be considered Bloxam's example, procured during 

 the voyage of the ' Blonde.' What is said to be the type of Nectarinia flava of that 

 writer, and of Drepanis flava of J. E. Gray, still exists at the British Museum, and 



1 The name applied to several other of the yeJlow-green species of Himatione. 



2 A very bad figure, questionable whether it refers to this species ; also whether the " femelle " described and 

 figured, p. 130, pi. lxviii., is of the same species ; but the latter is most like H. virens. i 



