NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE. 



Vol. VI. AUGUST, 1899. No. 2. 



A EEVIEW OF THE ORNITHOLOGY OF THE GALAPAGOS 



ISLANDS. 



WITH NOTES ON THE WEBSTER-HARRIS EXPEDITION. 



By the HON. WALTER ROTHSCHILD Pn.D., and ERNST HARTERT. 



(Plates V. and VI.) 



I. 

 INTRODUCTORY NOTES. 



TOAVARDS the end of ls96 one of iis—Mr. Rothschild— suggested to Mr. 

 Fivink B. Webster, of Hyde Park, Massachusetts, that he should send out 

 an expedition to the Galapagos Islands, to collect natural history specimens. The 

 great interest attached to the fauna of the Galapagos Islands since Darwin's 

 explorations became still more intense thmngh the most successful recent explora- 

 tions of Messrs. Baur &■ Adams. The bulk of the collections made by these two 

 gentlemen was purchased from the late Dr. Baur, and is now in the Tring Museum. 

 Their study made the desire for more material more ardent. 



Mr. Webster was much interested in the proposed scheme, and he arranged an 

 expedition in March 1S97, under the command of Mr. Charles Miller Harris as chief 

 naturalist and Mr. S. A. Robinson as sailing master, Messrs. James Cornell, 0. E. 

 Bullock, and George Nelson as collectors. The party went to ( "olon, where they 

 intended to charter a suitable vessel. Here poor Robinson, Cornell, and Bullock 

 contracted yellow fever and died, partly at Colon, partly on their voyage home; and 

 Nelson, on reaching San Francisco, refused to go on and returned home. Mr. Harris 

 however, did not despair. He was able, after some delay, to charter the two-masted 

 schooner Lila am/ Matfic, and left San Francisco, accompanied by Messrs. R. H. 

 Beck, F. P. Drowne, and ('. D. Hull as collectors. The gross tonnage of the vessel 

 was 105'T6, the length 93 feet. The crew, including the captain, consisted of five 

 persons. Besides a yawl-boat with sail belonging to the vessel, an 18-feet-long, 

 flat-bottomed, high-nosed skiff, was taken for landing in surf. 



The unfortunate delay caused by the deplorable fate of Messrs. Robinson, 

 Bullock, and (Jornell, was much to be regretted in several ways. The original 

 intention to make extensive collections on Guadalupe, several islands of the Revilla 

 Gigedo group, on Cocos and Malpelo Islands opposite the coast of Colombia, and to 

 visit the uliknowu and doubtful islands of Duncan and Gallego, between the Revilla 

 Gigedo group and the Galapagos Islands, had to be abandoned, and only a short stay 

 could be made on Clarion Island, the most western ishxud ol' tiie Revilla Gigedo 

 group, while Cocos Island, the exploration of which was considered specially 



