1 66 Henshaw, Emperor Goose hi Haivaii. X'^^ 



The habitual winter migration of ducks from the northwest 

 coast to the islands, as well as that of the plover, has unquestion- 

 ably been going on for many centuries, and had begun long before 

 the islands possessed human inhabitants to profit by the visits of 

 food birds. Yet no doubt the migration from America is very 

 recent as compared to the length of time most of the land birds 

 have been island residents. 



At first thought it seems strange that, with the exception of the 

 Short-eared Owl — now a long time resident and even yet a casual 

 emigrant from the northwest — no west coast land birds have 

 found their way hither, or at any rate have become established in 

 the islands. The most probable explanation of the fact is that 

 when blown off the coast, as the land birds must frequently be, 

 and even when such strays join flocks of water birds on their way 

 hither, as no doubt they often do, their strength gives out long 

 before they reach port. Circumstances must needs be very excep- 

 tional when even so strong and hardy birds as woodpeckers can 

 fly two thousand miles without stopping, if indeed they can perform 

 the feat under any conceivable conditions. In the unlikely event 

 of the birds reaching land after so prolonged and tremendous a 

 flight there remains the probability of their dying from exhaustion. 



Nevertheless, the ancestral stock from which have sprung the 

 Meliphagidae and the Muscicapidae, which are probably of Austra- 

 lian derivation, and the Drepanididae, which may have come from 

 neotropical America, successfully solved what must have been 

 practically the same problem of prolonged flight over the ocean, 

 and why not such birds as the American Picidae, Fringillidae, and 

 Corvidae, to say nothing of other hardy and strong flying birds, not 

 one of which has a representative in the island avifauna ? 



In referring to the migration of the west coast water birds to 

 the archipelago I have elsewhere expressed the belief that, as time 

 went on, the number of American species wintering in the islands 

 was likely to increase, and that perhaps some might become per- 

 manent residents. I did not for the moment take into account the 

 constantly increasing number of island sportsmen and gunners to 

 whom everything that flies is game, and who are not only sure to 

 prevent the possibility of additional species locating on the islands 

 but who threaten the existence of several species long residents 



