2 



To complete my account of the two species from Hawaii, already treated in this work, 

 I here append Mr. Perkins's observations upon them, published in 'The Ibis' for 1893 

 (pp. 106-108) :— 



" But of all the birds of Kona the most interesting in habits is the shorter-billed 

 Hemignathus [H. wihoni]. The mere sight of so extraordinary a form could hardly fail 

 to awaken in any one a keen desire to witness the manner of its feeding, and this I 

 have many times been able to accomplish. It is a common bird from rather below 

 4000 feet to some hundreds of feet above that altitude, and most probably much higher 

 still. It is most partial to the larger acacias, running up and down the limbs and 

 trunks with equal ease, and also both on the upper and lower surfaces of the branches. 

 It was on the 11th of July, soon after my arrival at a sufficient altitude for this bird, 

 that I first saw one, a fine bright male, feeding. When I first caught sight of it it was 

 some ten yards off; but I easily got closer without scaring it in the slightest. Being 

 bare-footed and bare-legged at the time, and the ground being overgrown with a very 

 prickly introduced thistle, after following it for half an hour I found my feet somewhat 

 painful. Meanwhile the bird kept straying over the fallen trunks, turning its head, 

 now right, now left, in its desire for food. In this manner it searched both sides of the 

 tree in one journey without retracing its steps. And this is how it uses its bill: — The 

 upper mandible it plunges into the small holes or cracks in the wood, while the lower 

 presses on the surface of the bark. By this means, I imagine, it gets a considerable 

 leverage to help it in opening out the burrows of the insects. In the same way it 

 thrusts its upper bill under the loose bark, resting the lower one on the surface, and in 

 this way strips the bark off. The upper mandible, though so thin, is very strong and 

 somewhat flexible ; while the curve of the bill follows the curve of the burrow, for 

 insects nearly always burrow more or less in a curve. Should the curve of the burrow 

 not agree with the curve of the bill, the difficulty is overcome both by the slight 

 flexibility of the beak and by the wonderful flexibility of the bird's neck, which it 

 twists round so as to bring the curve of the bill to follow that of the burrow. In this 

 manner it gets out its prey, being largely aided by the long tongue, which is as long as 

 the upper beak. Every now and then it gives several blows to the trunk, the sound of 

 which may be heard at a considerable distance, sometimes, I think, to frighten out its 

 prey to the entrance of the burrow, sometimes for the purpose of actually breaking the 

 wood. 



" I had several other opportunities of observing this bird when feeding, afterwards ; 

 the blows that it gives to the trunk and branches are dealt with great vigour and with 

 the beak wide agape, so that the points of both mandibles come in contact with the 

 surface. One hot morning, shortly before I left Kona, I watched one of these birds for 

 some time lying on a branch of the ma mane and basking in the sun. Now and then 

 it would lazily turn and peck at the bark without changing its position. Suddenly it 

 started up and commenced to feed in earnest, dealing blows with savage energy. Into 

 these blows it throws its whole weight, swinging backwards from the thighs to renew 

 each stroke. In some cases at least these blows are for the purpose of driving out 

 insects, or at any rate have that result ; for several times I saw the bird after a stroke 



