INTRODUCTION xxxv 



company and that of different colonies. Practically all the specimens obtained were 

 mounted, when freshly killed, and to a large extent examined at the time. Observa- 

 tions were made in widely separated localities and in both mountain ranges. During 

 this period I had facilities for working at the specimens in the office of my friend 

 Mr A. Koebele, the Government entomologist of the islands, who accompanied me on a 

 number of my trips. Although, as has been said, my latter work was of a more special 

 nature, yet more new species than might have been expected were obtained. The time 

 spent by me in general collecting (i.e. excluding my last mentioned visit to the islands) 

 did not differ much in the case of the four islands Kauai, Maui, Molokai and Oahu, 

 averaging about eight months to each. On Lanai the small size of the island and its 

 few species of birds only necessitated about four months work, but the great island of 

 Hawaii consumed about twenty months, largely on account of its richness in species of 

 birds, as compared with any other of the group. 



All my collections were specially packed and shipped in Honolulu, and although 

 practically all the Lepidoptera and many of the other insects were pinned, and must 

 have received much rough handling in their several changes from steamer to train 

 and vice versa, I think hardly a specimen was damaged or even shifted. A single lot 

 unwisely sent by mail, for a special reason, was considerably damaged. 



In 1902 and 1903, having ceased to collect for the Committee and become engaged 

 in local economic entomology, I was able to visit several of the islands and collected a 

 great deal of material, some of it still being unworked or undescribed, while some of the 

 species are included in the systematic portion of this work. In 1902 I made an exten- 

 sive investigation, by breeding them, of many of the parasitic Hymenoptera and in 

 1903 I paid a good deal of attention to the native leaf-hoppers (Hornoptera). My 

 account of the birds was published at the end of 1903 (Vol. i, p. 365). After this date 

 except for occasional single days or for short periods I have done little field-work, and 

 when working have nearly always had some special object in view, rather than to collect 

 indiscriminately. Though greatly occupied with economic entomological w.ork I com- 

 pleted the Anobiidae (published in 1910), a group of beetles on which I had been 

 occupied, as occasion offered, for about ten years, and wrote supplementary papers on 

 other Coleoptera and several of the other Orders. As to the groups of insects, which 

 have been worked out for the Committee by well-known specialists, in most of these I 

 have had occasion to determine large numbers of species, or even considerable collec- 

 tions, the material having been collected both by myself and others. I have thought it 

 advisable to refer at this length to such work as I have personally done in connection 

 with the Hawaiian fauna, both in the field and study, because on this are based the 

 conclusions that I have arrived at in this Introduction. From observations of a less 

 wide nature or limited to a single group I might have arrived at other conclusions. 



It has already been said how much time was taken up in the search for some of the 

 rarer birds and in the acquisition of a good series of specimens of these. As to the 



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