March 17, i892_ 



NATURE 



467 



("Anatomic und Naturgeschichte der Vogel," ii. pp. 

 426-436), and, in like manner, since 1859, from Mr. G. R. 

 Gray's useful " Catalogue of the Birds of the Tropical 

 Islands of the Pacific Ocean," printed by order of the 

 Trustees of the British Museum, but the former was 

 obsolete, and the latter, as we now know, very erroneous.^ 

 Mr. Gray's references show him to have been as usual a 

 model of accuracy, but his judgment as an ornithologist 

 was frequently at fault. It was, therefore, with great 

 pleasure that, some time in the winter of 1870-71, I re- 

 ceived a copy of a " Synopsis of the Birds hitherto 

 described from the Hawaiian Islands," which had been 

 communicated in February 1869 to the Boston Society of 

 Natural History, by Mr. Dole, a resident in those islands, 

 and had been published in the Society's Proceedings 

 (xii. pp. 294-309) ; and Mr. Sclater, who I knew had 

 long taken an interest in the ornithology of the group, 

 lost no time in noticing this very important pubhcation 

 (/^zi-, 187 1, pp. 356-362), adding thereto some valuable 

 observations.'* This list has naturally proved a service- 

 able foundation for future work. Forty-eight species 

 were included, the author stating that this number 

 " probably comprises but little more than half the avi- 

 fauna of the group." That the list should be free from 

 error was not to be expected, and a revised version of it, 

 published in the " Hawaiian Almanack and Annual for 

 1879" (pp. 41-58), corrected some of the mistakes; but 

 it was an honest piece of work, doing credit to its com- 

 piler. In the meanwhile, however, the historic voyage 

 of H.M.S. Challenger had commenced, and one of the 

 places at which she' was to call was the Sandwich Islands. 

 Of course the main object of her voyage was the explora- 

 tion of the depths of the sea. Nevertheless, the terres- 

 trial zoology of the countries visited, though forming a 

 very subordinate part of the original plan, was not to be 

 wholly neglected— nor was it in this case, for, during the 

 three weeks she stayed in Hawaiian waters (July 27 to 

 August 19, 1875), her officers availed themselves to some 

 extent of the opportunity of studying the ornithology of 

 the islands, though it does not appear that they had re- 

 ceived any special instruction in regard to our imperfect 

 knowledge of it. Here, then, was another great chance 

 lost : for had those who drew up the directions for the 

 scientific members of the Expedition taken the trouble 

 to acquaint themselves with the particular points on 

 which investigation was needed, so as to indicate the 

 lines on which further research was desirable, no doubt 

 some one of the Challenger's staff would have supplied, 

 even in the short time of her stay, some of the missing 

 facts, or at least would have thrown some light on the 

 subject. As it was, the collection was reported as " small " 

 (24 bird-skins and no specimen in spirit), and " contain- 

 ing nothing absolutely new except a single species of 

 Anas" afterwards named A. toyvilliana^ (Proc. Zool. 

 Soc, 1878, p. 350). Something more, however, may yet 

 be expected. The late Prof. Moseley, in his " Notes of a 

 Naturalist on the Challenger" states (p. 514) that the 

 last excursion on shore of his colleague. Von Willemos 

 Suhm, was at Hilo in Hawaii, with a native guide, "in 

 pursuit of the interesting endemic birds," and that 

 " almost the last notes he wrote were some on the Sand- 

 wich Islands, relating especially to the birds." These 

 notes do not seem to have been placed at the disposal of 



■ Many of its worst errors are doubtless due to the loss, before mentioned, 

 of the type specimens, which had been suffered by the Museum long before 

 Mr. G. K. Gray was cjnnected with it. Latham, in 1821, had already 

 lamented their decay. It is almost needless to add that such a loss is not 

 now, nor for many years has been, possible. 



■ Mr Sclater was pleased to remark that this " memoir " had "es- 

 caped" my notice as editor of The Ibis. Herein he was in error. It 

 certainly did not come to my knowledge while I was discharging that duty, 

 and I doubt whether any copy reached England until after 1 had laid down 

 my office. 



i I do not venture to doubt the distinctness of this species, which had 

 before been mentioned as ./. boscas, var. : but its describer might have 

 shownmore clearly wherein it differs from the well-known American A. ' 

 obscura, which seems its nearest ally. • I 



the ornithologists who described the specimens obtained 

 by the Challenger ; but they can hardly have been 

 destroyed. 



Having myself felt a good deal of interest in the avi- 

 fauna of the Sandwich Isles — which, like that of many 

 other islands throughout the world, was, as I had learnt, 

 threatened with extirpation, chiefly in consequence of the 

 destruction of the forests — I could not fail to be disap- 

 pointed at the meagre results obtained by our people on 

 this celebrated cruise, when it would have been so easy 

 for them to have done better had their attention been 

 duly called, and I cast about in several directions to find 

 some suitable person to visit the islands with the view of 

 investigating their ornithology in a thorough way. My 

 young friend Mr. Scott Barchard Wilson (son of the well- 

 known Mr. George Wilson, F.R.S.) — of whose taste for 

 natural history I was well assured by his residence in my 

 own College, by his journey to Portugal with Dr. Gadow, 

 and by his subsequent sojourn in Switzerland {Ibis, 

 18^7, pp. 130-150) — wiUingly took up the enterprise, and 

 left Liverpool on February 24, 1887, for Honolulu, where 

 he arrived on April 8, having on his way paid a visit to 

 Washington to confer with Dr. Stejneger, whose name 

 had already appeared in connexion with the birds of the 

 Sandwich Isles. Mr. Wilson stayed in the islands until 

 towards the close of the following year. He brought 

 back such a collection as had never before been made 

 there ; but, rich as it was in some respects, defects 

 became apparent as it was gradually worked out, and 

 some of these defects are so grave that, until they are 

 remedied, no complete list of the avifauna can be formed. 

 I am deeply sorry that he has not been able to return ; 

 for, with his knowledge of what is wanted, it would be 

 more easy for him to fill up the lacunce than anyone 

 else ; and I long hoped that he would pay a second visit 

 with this object. However, he has done a great deal 

 more than anybody before him : he has ascertained the 

 precise localities of nearly all the birds hitherto known, 

 and added to them not inconsiderably-^t>«r/'^^« new 

 species or local forms of Passeres, two of which required 

 generic acknowledgment — all, it needs not to say, being 

 peculiar to the islands, and mostly to one particular 

 island only. It can scarcely fail to be interesting that the 

 distribution in the group of the different genera and local 

 forms of Passeres should be shown, and this is best done 

 by the accompanying table. ^ 



But Mr. Wilson was not content, as so many col- 

 lectors in foreign countries are, with preserving only the 

 skins of the birds he procured. He was careful to obtain 

 specimens in spirit of all the important existing types ; 

 and these, having been properly subjected to examina- 

 tion by Dr. Gadow, have led to some remarkable results 

 — the most remarkable that have been as yet made known 

 in regard to the birds of the Sandwich Islands, and 

 perhaps the most remarkable of those published during 

 the past year in regard to Ornithology at large. They 

 are contained in the dissertation I have already men- 

 tioned as being contributed by Dr. Gadow to Mr. 

 Wilson's work. Most of the land-birds of the Sand- 

 wich Islands had been at one time thought to belong to 

 the MeliphagidcF, or Honey-suckers — a Family very cha- 

 racteristic of the Australian Region, and known to be 

 very polymorphic. It was thought to be still more so ; 

 and the surmise had been acted upon, so that some 

 Finch looking birds, Psittacirostra and Loxioides had 

 been supposed to be Honey-suckers in disguise, and 



■ 1 have no desire to overlook the services of Mr. Valdem.ar Knudsen, of 

 Kauai, who sent thence to the United States National Museum_ several col- 

 lections, the most important of which was described by Dr. Stejneger in the 

 Proceedings of that institution for 1887 (PP- 75-io2)- the year of Mr. Wilson's 

 arrival in the islands. The Doctor's paper is of the exhaustive character to 

 which one is accustomed in all his productions, and has been of considerable 

 use in working out Mr. Wilson's collections, while these have enabled the 

 latter to correct several mistakes — under the circumstances quite pardonable 

 — made by the former, who subsequently described in the same Proceedings 

 (xii. pp. 377-386) another collection from the same quarter. 



NO. I 168, VOL. 45] 



