AVIFAUNA OF LAYSAN. 



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2. HIMATIONE FREETHI, RothscL 



LAYSAN HONEY-EATER. 



Kleiner rother Vogel, Kittlitz, Museum Senckenbergianum, i. p. 125, no. 17 (1834). 

 Uimatione fraithii, Rothsch. Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1892, x. p. 109. 



Adult male. Head, throat, breast, and upper abdomen of a bright scarlet-vermilion, with a 

 faint tinge of golden orange, which is more pronounced in freshly moulted and living 

 birds; lower back and upper tail-coverts similar in colour to the head, rest of upper 

 parts orange-scarlet ; the feathers of these parts arc greyish brown at base, with a pale 

 shaft-stripe and broadly tipped with orange- scarlet, those of the head and back of neck 

 with distinct whitish spots before the red tips ; on the hind neck all the basal part is 

 quite concealed and only the red tips visible, but on the back of the neck the sub- 

 terminal colour becomes somewhat conspicuous; lower abdomen dull ashy brown, fading 

 into whity brown on the under tail-coverts ; under wing-coverts dull ashy brown ; quills 

 dusky brown, with blackish shafts, paler at the tips, where the shafts, too, are pale ; 

 primaries externally narrowly edged with whitish, inside with buff; secondaries with 

 pale scarlet outer edges. Bill and feet black ; iris reddish yellow. Total length about 

 5J inches, wing 2 55 to 2'7 (average 2-G5), tail 2'4, culmen 0*55, tarsus 9. 



Adult female. Similar to the male, but the red somewhat paler in tinge. 



Young. General colour dull brown on the upper surface and light ashy brown on the under- 

 pays, many of the feathers margined with rich buffy brown, and those of the head and 

 hind neck with a blackish terminal and a buffy subterminal spot, thus producing a 

 somewhat mottled appearance ; wings and tail dark brown, the primaries narrowly and 

 the secondaries broadly margined with rich brownish buff ; chin and upper throat orange- 

 buff; lower abdomen and under tail-coverts white tinged with buff. 



" Iris brown ; bill blackish, brownish in the young, base of lower mandible orange in young 

 birds ; feet black." 



The present species resembles Uimatione sangninea, from the Sandwich Islands, but is 

 easily distinguished by its shorter bill and its scarlet-vermilion colour instead of the 

 blood-red darker colour of Uimatione sanguinea. 



Hab. The island of Laysan, where Palmer discovered it in June, 1891. 



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