AVIFAUNA OF LATSAN, ETC. 



189 



THE GENUS PSITTIROSTRA. 



Psittirostra, Temm. Man. d'Om. i. p. lxxi (1820). (Afterwards often corrected into Psittacirostra.) 

 Sittacodes, Gloger, Handb. p. 219 (1812). 



Psittacosis, Nitzsch, teste Cab. Arch. f. Naturgesch. 1817, p. 330. (I am unable to find where Nitzsch 



published this name. Scudder quotes Psittacopis, Nitzsch, 182-.) 

 Psittacina, Licht. Nomencl. p. 18 (1854). (Lichtenstein quotes Psittacina, Temm.; but Temminck did not 



publish that name.) 



This genus is characterized by its stout and curved maxilla, the entire hill being more like 

 that of a Fringilline bird than that of a member of the family Drepauidce. Nevertheless it 

 belongs to the latter family. It is only natural that in former days, with skins only in hand, 

 the genus was placed among the FHngillidce. Even the study of the skins, however, induced 

 more recent ornithologists to class this form (like Loxops) with the Drepauidce, or, as this 

 family was not then recognized, at least along with the allied genera Hemiguathus, Drepauis, 

 Loxops in the Dicceidce, or whatever they called the assemblage 1 . It was Dr. Gadow, who 

 quite recently, in his chapter on the " Structure of Hawaiian Birds " in Wilson's ' Aves 

 Hawaiienses,' came back to the old theory of its being a Einch, and he derived his view 

 from anatomical researches. Dr. Gadow's theory, however, Avas evidently wrong, and he 

 has recently admitted that not only this but also all the other thick-billed Passeres of the 

 Sandwich Islands belong to the Drepauidce. 



See, for example: Sckter, Ibis, 1871, p. 360: lleichenow, Vogel der Zoologischeu Garten, ii. p. 365 (1884); 

 Sharpe, Cat. B. x. \\ 2 (188-5), and others. 



2d2 



