180 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



3. Hemignathus lucidus {Lichtemtein) . 



Nedarinia lucida, Light. Mem. Acad. Berlin, 1839, p. 451. 



Mem. Acad. Berlin, 1839, PI. V, fig. 2 ; Voy. Venus, Ois. PI. I. 



In the curious little birds of this genus there is quite an appreciable 

 diversity in the thickness and degree of curve in the bill in different 

 specimens of apparently the same species. This variation may be, 

 and probably is, dependent in some measure on the age of the indivi- 

 dual, and we suspect that the curve is greatest in adult birds. Nor 

 are we sure that the half-billed character, indicated by the name of 

 this genus, it strictly correct, for reasons mentioned in a preceding 

 article. 



These birds appear to be restricted to the Sandwich Islands. We 

 have now before us, from the collection of the Expedition, and from 

 the Museum of the Philadelphia Academy, several specimens which 

 appear to be the present and preceding species. They bear a strong 

 general resemblance to each other, but the present is the larger, and 

 has the bill much stronger. It is not surprising that these two birds 

 have been repeatedly mistaken for each other by authors, and they 

 are in fact to be distinguished with difficulty by descriptions only. 



According to Mr. Peale, the three birds here included in the genus 

 Hemignaihus are very similar in their habits, and frequent the same 

 description of locality. 



The bills in this bird, and that immediately preceding, are rarely 

 exactly alike in any two specimens. The difference is in length and 

 thickness and curve. In the specimens before us, very few have the 

 bill curved at the same angle, or perhaps it would be more in accord- 

 ance with the language of mathematics, to say that these bills describe 

 arcs of different circles. 



We find nothing recorded by the naturalists of the Expedition in 

 reference to the habits or history of this singular group of birds; nor, 

 we regret to say, elsewhere, except in the volume on the Quadrupeds 

 and Birds of the Voyage of the Venus (p. 183, octavo, Paris, 1855). 

 It is probably very nearly impossible to determine or reconcile with 

 each other the synonyms of these two species, or the instances in 

 which they have been mistaken for each other ; but we have given 

 them as they appear to us, and as represented in the plates cited. 



