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INTRODUCTION. 



Ihe following catalogue is based upon G. R. Gray's „Li.st of the Birds of the Tropical Islands 

 of the Pacific Ocean" published in 1859 and may, in some sense, be regarded as an enlarged second edition 

 of it, brought up to the standard of our present knowledge. The lines of Gray's little work have been 

 departed from in two particulars. The teachings of geographical distribution have rendered it necessary to 

 abandon the artificial boundaries of the tropics adopted by him ; to overstep them in the case of the Austral 

 Islands ; to leave out the Sandwich Islands , which constitute in themselves a distinct subregion , and also 

 New Britain, New Ireland and the Solomon Islands, which belong to Papuasia. Thus, the limits of Polynesia 

 borne in view in drawing up the present list are those originally marked out by Dr. Sclater and Dr. 

 Wallace with this difference, that the Sandwich Islands are omitted; and they are, in fact, those determined 

 by the former in a paper read this year before the international meeting of ornithologists at Buda-Pesth. 

 Setting aside one very important and debateable point referred to below, this demarkation of Polynesia will 

 be found to be the only natural one. 



The second departure from the plan of Gray's book consists in the attempt to give a full synonymy 

 in the case of species peculiar to the subregion, which are marked with an *, together with references to 

 any statements of scientific worth concerning them which have fallen under the writer's notice. For species 

 which range into Polynesia from other quarters only the more important synonyms are given together with 

 the references bearing on their occurrence in the subregion. A few exceptions to this rule in favour of some 

 very familiar Polynesian species have been made (Urodynamis taitiensis, Carpophaga pacifica, etc.). 



Owing to the amount of ornithological work done in this subregion as elsewhere of late years a 

 critical review of the birds has been needed for some time. Since the publication of Gray's list the number 

 of species within the limits of Polynesia, as at present defined, has been nearly doubled: — there are now 

 upwards of 400 as against about 220 known thirty two years ago ; and of these 400 no fewer than 281 — 291, 

 counting subspecies, are autochthonous. This large increase is mainly due to the practical efforts of Mr. 

 Layard and his son, Mr. E. L. C. Layard, in the Fiji Islands, New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, and 

 of the collectors of the Godeffroy Museum, — Kubary in the Pelew and Caroline Islands, Dr. Griiffe 

 and Kleinschmidt in Central Polynesia, and Garrett in Eastern Polynesia; of Dr. Finsch and others. 

 A great stimulus to research has been given by the growing I'ecognition of the importance of geographical 

 separation in the production of new forms, which is exemplified on so large a scale and in so remarkable 

 a manner in the island world of the Pacific. "When Gray compiled his list the importance of the 

 locality and the conditions of life which obtain there was little known ; consequently the habitats of 

 species did not call for his close attention, and implicit confidence cannot always be placed in those which 

 he specifies. At the present date the correct indication of habitats has become the sine qua non of a 

 faunal work on Polynesia. Granted species of fairly stationary habits, such as most of the Passeres of 

 this subregion, the stretches of sea between the island-groups are generally sufficient to ensure the discovery 

 of distinct races on the lands so separated. At the same time it should be noted that there are certain 

 wide-ranging species, such as Caloenas nicobarica and Ortygometra tabuensis. which, though in all 

 probability of stationary habits, nevertheless appear to possess an extraordinarily fixed, invariable, constitution, 

 — to be less plastic than other species under the conditions which promote change, perhaps on account of 

 their relatively great antiquity ; and such forms have hitherto defied the best efforts of naturalists to poin^. 

 out specific, subspecific, or even racial, distinctions between specimens coming from widely separated localities _ 

 I'crhaps they find no cause, as may other species when geographically separated, to change their old habits 



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