Dicæum luzoniense Grant, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club (1894), 3, 1; Ibis
(1897), 238; Whitehead, Ibis (1899), 235; McGregor and Worcester,
Hand-List (1906), 96.
Cu-si-ti, Benguet.
Luzon (Whitehead, McGregor).
Adult male.--Upper parts, including exposed edges of wing-feathers and
rectrices, glossy steel-green; lores black; sides of head and of neck
black slightly glossed with green; chin very pale yellow; throat and
chest scarlet-vermilion; breast and abdomen white, washed with pale
yellow and with a slaty black line down the middle; sides and flanks
olivaceous; thighs black mixed with white; crissum saffron-yellow;
rectrices and wing-feathers black; wing-lining white. Iris brown;
bill, legs, and nails black. Length, about 95; wing, 56; tail, 29;
culmen from base, 10; bill from nostril, 6; tarsus, 12.
"The female resembles the female of D. ignipectus, but the top of
the head and back are very distinctly glossed with metallic green
as in the male, though the gloss is much less pronounced. In some
females of D. ignipectus the head is slightly glossed, but the back
is always olive-green. Length, 86; wing, 46.5; tail, 28; tarsus, 12;
culmen, 11.4." (Grant.)
Young.--Above mouse-gray washed with olive-green; under parts gray
washed with dull olivaceous; abdomen, crissum, and middle of breast
washed with light yellow. The first indication of the adult plumage
consists of a few red feathers on the throat.
The Luzon flowerpecker is abundant in the mountains of Benguet Province
and appears not to occur in the lowlands.