170 



AVIFAUNA OF LAYSAN, ETC. 



Young males resemble the female, but are less green, and a strong orange wash soon becomes 

 visible, progressing more and more as the birds advance in age. All possible inter- 

 mediate colours between the adult orange-red birds and the olive-grey young birds are 

 represented in my collection. 



llab. Hawaii only. 



Loxops cocas/:,, is also one of the discoveries of the early travellers, and was first described 

 by Lai ham. The first Latin name bestowed on it was Fringilla coccinea, given by Gmelin. 

 Professor Cabanis first of all, after having studied specimens sent from Oahu (Loxops rufa), 

 distinguished the genus Loxops. Up to quite recent times this bird was rare in collections,' 

 and even Scott Wilson only got males and considered it "one of the rarest of Hawaiian 

 birds, and cannot, I think, be far from extinct." There is, however, no reason to fear that 

 the bird will soon disappear, as it is still numerous in the higher regions of Hawaii, while 

 another species of the genus inhabits the island of Maui, not to speak of the green Loxops 

 C<eruleir08tri8 of Kauai, and of the rare, and perhaps nearly extinct, L. rufa of Oahu. 



Perkins (Ibis, 1893, p. 105) says of this species:— "Of the Drepanida the rarest 

 species in the Kona district was Loxops cocciuea, I saw only the adult and young males, 

 and these were mostly feeding on insects, either amongst the blossoms of the alii-tree or on 

 the foliage of the acacias. Their habits seemed almost identical with those of the yellow 

 species of Himatione. I never heard any proper song, nothing more than a squeaking like 

 that of the female Himatione. On several occasions it was in company with the small, 

 straight-billed J lima Hone; on two of these I saw it pursue the latter from tree to tree, and 

 on another the Himatione was itself the aggressor. On one of these occasions I shot the green 

 bird, and it was beyond doubt the Eimatione, and not a green female of Loxops. Loxops is 

 apparently confined to the upper forest ." 



So little being known about this pretty little bird, I instructed Henry Palmer to do his 

 very best to discover the female and to make the history of the species more known 

 Strange to say, it was a long time before the female was discovered ; for the first time Palmer 

 saw none but the red males, and not knowing whether the female would be red also or -reen 

 he shot many males, and in fact more than I should have desired. However the lar^series' 

 now before me proves that the bird is not so rare as it was believed to be and 

 it enabled me to give the measurements and descriptions with greater accuracy and 

 completeness. J 



According to Palmer, this bird inhabits the higher regions from between 5000 to 7000 

 feet, although one was occasionally shot not higher than about 3000 feet It frequents 

 chiefly old lava-flows, where the Aaka-flowers are plentiful. Higher up the females we-e 

 not rare, although less numerous than t he males, while lower down Palmer searched for them 

 in van,, lie says in his diary :-« I cannot understand why I did not find any females at 

 Pulehna, while on (he other side of tin,, island and at higher elevations I found females and they 

 were altogether more numerous on Mt. Hualalai. The bird I cannot say is exactly very rare 



IT TZiT tll ° nUmber 1 Sh0t * " WM °™Paratively numerous in Kona between' 

 4000 and 7000 feet, common on the Kohala Mountains at 4000, several seen in Hamakua Hilo 

 Puna. They can be distinguished from the Himatione from a wide distance when one has' 



