AVIFAUNA OF LATSAN, ETC. 



141 



THE GENUS HIMATIONE. 



This genus was first established by Cabanis (Museum Heineanum, i. p. 99), with Himatione 

 sanguinea as the type, and including the green-coloured species. This custom has been 

 followed to the present day, until Perkins proposed (in Wilson's ' Aves Hawaiienses,' pt. vii.) 

 to separate the green forms as a new genus, Chlorodrepanis. This seems to be sufficiently 

 founded in fact, and I therefore accept it. In Himatione, as restricted to the red species 

 (H. scmguinea and II fraithi), the adult bird is red, the feathers of the head are elongated, 

 pointed, and somewhat stiff, the primaries are somewhat truncate at the tip, the nostrils 

 covered with a bare operculum, at the base of which are some bristles ; the third or fourth 

 primary is longest, the second a little shorter, the first rudimentary ; bill strong, curved, and 

 with a sharp point ; tongue brush-like and tubular. Open nests on trees ; eggs spotted. 



Both Himatione and Chlorodrepanis differ from Oreomyza (see p. Ill) in having a 

 distinctly curved, somewhat longer beak, in having a larger and better fitting operculum over 

 the nostrils, and in having the second primary very little shorter than the third, which is 

 generally equal to the fourth and forms the tip. In typical Oreomyza the second primary is, 

 as a rule, much shorter than the third, which again is shorter than the fourth and does not 

 form the tip. 



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