Some Birds of Molokai . 47 



LIST OF BIRDS. 



Micranous hawaiiensis (Roths.)- 



A few examples were seen at sea off the Wailau side of the 

 island. There is a cave on the coast between Pelekunu and Wai- 

 kolu, through which it is possible to row a canoe at low tide, that 

 is used by this species as a nesting and roosting place. Although 

 I did not visit the cave, I am reliably informed that the thousands 

 of little Hawaiian Tern or Noio make this their home. 



^strelata sandwichensis Ridgw. 



CEsfrelata saiidiL'ic/ieiisis Ridgwa)-, Water B. X. Am., ii, p. 395 (1884). 



Although the Uau is to be .seen at the proper seasons on the 

 channels between the various islands of the group, and has for 

 generations bpen hunted by the Hawaiians for food, not to men- 

 tion its having long ago been made to figure in a very popular 

 legend of the natives, it has continued to remain one of the rarest 

 of the Hawaiian birds in museum collecftions. 



Up to the present, save for an immature specimen in the Bishop 

 Museum that was colle(5led b}' Mr. Henshaw on the beach at Hilo, 

 in 1900, the species has been known onlj- from a skin "from the 

 Sandwich Islands" in the U. S. National Museum (No. 61,259), 

 colle(5led b}- Mr. V. Knudsen, and a second specimen taken by 

 him on Kauai, now in the British Museum. It is, therefore, with 

 considerable satisfac5lion that I report on a fine series of adult 

 skins which I secured on Molokai during the month of June. 



On April 26, while at the residence of Mr. John Walker, in 

 Pelekunu valley, I was shown, in a cabinet of curiosities, a roughly 

 mounted specimen of the Uau. The bird had been collected by 

 Mrs. Walker three or four years before the time of my visit, one 

 morning, asleep in the long grass on the hills back of the village, 

 and not far from Mrs. Walker's house. The specimen was kindly 

 given to me for examination. The following morning, at an early 

 hour, I heard a solitary bird calling from high up on the cliffs near 

 the village where I had spent the night. I at once made an effort 

 among the natives to organize an Uau hunt. The\- all agreed 



[137] 



