AVIFAUNA OF LAYSANj ETC. 



73 



Iris dark brown. Upper mandible deep brown ; lower mandible brown at tip, creamy 

 yellowish at base. Legs and Feet slaty bine, but less bright and paler than in the adult 

 birds. 



Measurements of adult specimens : — Total length about 5| to 6 inches, wing 2*9 to 3*08 

 (average 2*95), tail 2*5 to 2*7, culmenO'5, tarsus O'.85.to0'89, middle toe without claw 0' \t9. 



Rah. Island of Hawaii. 



The "Hawaii Flycatcher" is one of the commonest birds on Hawaii. Perkins says (I.e.) : — 

 " The single species of Chasiempis (C. sandwichensis) found in Kona is one of the commonest 

 birds, extending its range from about 1400 feet to the limits of proper forest on Mauna Loa, 

 and also high up Ilualalai. It is a pretty species, with great difference in colour between the 

 young and the old ; in this respect resembling the Oahuan species, in both cases snowy-white 

 feathers in the adult taking the place of rufous feathers in the young. On one occasion I 

 obtained a rufous female along with the ordinarily coloured male and their young, just out of 

 the nest ; but this I believe to be a very unusual circumstance, the female probably being a 

 young specimen breeding before it had assumed adult plumage. The male was quite typical. 

 The adult female closely resembles the male, but the latter is black under the gorge, and I 

 believe the feathers become blacker in the breeding-season, just as the hackles of our common 

 Starling lose their white tips at this season, but the change is less marked in Chasiempis. 

 I have no doubt all the Kona birds belong to one species, the rufous birds nearly always having 

 an entirely or partially unossified skull. These birds live chiefly on insects and their larvse. 



The insects they often take on the wing, their beaks closing with a very audible snap They 



frequently descend to the ground or on to fallen trees, where they get wood-boring larvse or 

 small myriapods. With reference to this habit I had the following anecdote from a native 

 woman in Kona :— ' Of all the birds the most celebrated in ancient times was the Mepeio, 

 and for this reason. When the old natives used to go up into the forest to get wood for their 

 canoes, when they had felled their tree the Mepeio would come down to it. If it beffan to 

 peck it was a bad sign, as the wood was no good, being unsound ; if, on the contrary, without 

 pecking, it called out ' Oua ha ia, f c Sweet the fish,' the timber was sound.' The names 

 mepeio and Ona ha ia (pronounced onokaia) arc both creditable word-imitations of the cry of 

 Chasiempis under various emotions, here presumably of disgust." 



Palmer's observations agree with those of Mr. Perkins, but it seems that he found them 

 even lower than 1100 feet. I do not think there is any remarkable difference between 

 the sexes, at least my series at present does not hear out any. There is no doubt that this 

 species sometimes breeds in the quite immature plumage, as also Palmer saw pairs of which 

 one was white-rumped, the other rufous-rumped. There are several specimens among 

 my birds which distinctly show an intermediate plumage between the first two described 

 above. 



Although Sclater and Berlcpsch and Lcverkiihn maintained that the white-rumped and 

 rufous-rumped birds belonged to one species, it was not before the field-observations of Palmer 



