INSESSORES. 



173 



Atlas, Ornithology, Plate XI, fig. 2. Adult. 



Mr. Peale observes with reference to this species : 

 This is a very active and noisy bird, commonly found amongst the 

 blossoms of the cocoa trees in the Samoan Islands ; we sometimes saw 

 it eating ripe bananas. The two sexes are alike in plumage ; the 

 female is somewhat more delicate in form than the male, and perhaps 

 not so noisy. 



" We saw it in all the islands of the Samoan Group ; at Upolu and 

 Tutuila, it was most plentiful." 



Several specimens of this bird, in the collection of the Expedition, 

 vary but little from each other, and present no characters different 

 from those given by the authors above cited, and represented in their 

 plate, to which we have referred. It is a large and robustly organized 

 species, with the bill and legs unusually strong and lengthened. Sexes 

 similar. 



So far as our judgment goes, this bird is Merops samoensis, as de- 

 scribed in the Ann. d&s Sci. Nat., as above cited, but that name is 

 omitted in the volume of the Zoology of the Voyage of the Astrolabe 

 and Zelee, above referred to, though published under the auspices and 

 editorship of Messrs. Hombron and Jacquinot themselves. We regard 

 Merops samoensis, Homb. and Jac, as identical with Leptornis si/Ivestris, 

 Jac. and Puch., though these distinguished authors and voyagers have 

 not recognized this identity, or the latter have accidentally overlooked 

 the description by the former, both having reference to the same spe- 

 cimens. 



Our figure is of the natural size. 



3. Genus PTILOTIS, Swainson, Cab. Cy. II, p. 326 (1837). 

 1. Ptilotis cakunculata {Gmelin). 



Certhia carunculata, Gm. Sjst. Nat. I, p. 472 (1788). 



Aud. & Vieill. Ois. Dor. Plate LIX, LXX. 



Form. — Bill long, curved ; a bare space and somewhat projecting ca- 

 runcle posterior to and in a line with the base of the lower man- 

 dible ; aperture and membrane of the nostril large ; wing rather 



44 



