56.2 Mr. E. C. L. Perkins — Introduction to 



XL. — An Introduction to the Study of the Drepanididse, a 

 Family of Birds peculiar to the Hawaiian Islands. By 

 Robert C. L. Perkins, B.A.* 



Remarkable as are some other members of the Hawaiian 

 Avifauna, yet it is upon the Drepaniue birds that the interest 

 of the ornithologist will always be centred. The Drepani- 

 didte, as here considered, include thirty-six species, belonging 

 to no less than eighteen genera. One genus with one species 

 is restricted to the outlying island of Laysan, as is also a 

 second species not generically peculiar, both being included in 

 these remarks on the family, although with the rest of the 

 Laysan Avifauna they may be excluded from the list of 

 Hawaiian forms. The total number of species here cited is 

 rather less than that given by the latest writers on the Archi- 

 pelago, owing to the fact that several forms whicb have been 

 described as distinct appear to be quite unworthy of such rank. 



1. Small proportion of Species as compared ivith Genera. 



If we compare the Drepanine birds with the peculiarly 

 Hawaiian families in other groups of animals, we are at once 

 struck by the very large number of genera accepted as com- 

 pared with species. No doubt this is partly due to the very 

 different value attached to characters supposed to be generic 

 by systematic workers in different lines, and also to the 

 large size of birds as compared with many other creatures, 

 owing to which their characters are obvious on the most 

 casual inspection. If we compare the Drepanididse with such 

 a family as the Proterhinidae in the Beetles, which is also 

 peculiar to the Hawaiian Islands, we do not find the latter 

 susceptible of easy division into well-marked genera as in the 

 birds ; indeed, at present the members are all included in a 

 single genus. Yet to the student of both groups it is obvious 

 that the extreme forms of the Proterhinidee exhibit differ- 

 ences of structure as great and varied as are found in the 

 extreme forms of the Drepanididse; in fact the variety of 



* Communicated by the Joint Committee appointed by the Royal 

 Society and the British Association for investigating the Zoology of the 

 Sandwich Islands. 



