468 



NA TURE 



[March i 7, 1892 



iclassed accordingly. Dr. Gadow has shown that this sup- 

 position is wholly erroneous, and that these last, together 

 with another form, Chloridops—o-nt of Mr. Wilson's dis- 

 coveries — are true Fringillidce j while out of the whole 

 Hawaiian avifauna, only two genera can be referred to 

 the MeliphagtdcE — namely, Acrulocercus {Moho of some 

 writers) and Chcetoptila, the last being presumably 



Table showing the Distribution of Birds of the Order Passeres 

 in the Sandiuich Islands. 



CORVID^. 



Corvus tropicus 



Fringillid.^— 



Ps ittacirostra psittacea 



Loxioides bailleui 



Chloridops kona 



" Fringilla" anna 



DREPANIDIDyE — 



Loxops coccinea 



,, Jlammea 

 Chrysomitridops caruleirostris 

 Oreomyza bairdi 



Himatione stejnegeri 



,, parva 

 ,, chloris 

 ,, maculata ... 

 ,, chloridoides 

 ,, montana ... 

 ,, kalaana ... 

 ,, virens 

 ,, niana 

 ,, sanguinea.., 

 ,, dolii 

 Vestiaria coccinea 

 Drepanis pacifica 

 Hemignathus procerus 



,, lichtensieini ... 



,, obscurus 



,, hanapepe 



,, lucidus 



,, olivaceus 



Meliphagid^— 



Acrulocercus braccatus 



,, apicalis 



,, nobilis ... 



Chcetoptila angustipluma 



Turdid.e(?)— 



FhcEornis myiadestina 

 ,, lanaiensis ... 

 ,, obscura 



MuSCICAPIDiE — 



Chasiempis (qusedem species non 

 determinatae) 



lltS'ols! ^1^ StS 



All the species above-named are peculiar to the group, i.e. 

 not found elsewhere. A * indicates that the species inhabits 

 the island whose name heads the column. A t shows that the 

 species is believed to be extinct. 



extinct. All the other forms which had been ac- 

 counted Meliphagine, present a peculiar structure of 

 tongue, forbidding that alliance, or any affinity to the 

 Prionopidce, DicaidcB, or NeciariftiidcE, but revealing a 

 distinct relationship to the Cocrebidce — now known as a 

 Family characteristic of the Neotropical Region ! Hereby 

 a beam of light is thrown on the origin and derivation 

 of the ornithic population of the Sandwich Islands. The 



NO. 1168, VOL. 45] 



distinct inference is that the first stock of their existing 

 avifauna was received from America, in days when the 

 range of the Ccerebidce extended further to the northward 

 than it does at present, and that certain cognates or 

 ancestors of the present Coerebidcc colonized the islands, 

 there differentiating into the modern Drepaitididce. The 

 importance of this inference on views which are held as 

 to the Geographical Distributionof Birds in North America 

 is a subject into which there is no need here to. enter, for 

 that would be a subject foreign to my present remarks ; 

 but I doubt not it will receive due attention from American 

 ornithologists, whom it most nearly concerns. That 

 these colonists from what I would venture to term a 

 " Columbian " fauna— since it cannot be literally called a 

 Neotropical one, and is certainly not " Nearctic" — were 

 the earliest settlers which have left descendants one can 

 hardly doubt,for they have existed in the Sandwich Islands 

 long enough to undergo a great amount of change. Sub- 

 sequently there has been a small infusion of blood from 

 the " Australian Region." I say subsequently, because 

 Dr. Gadow has shown that this immigration has under- 

 gone comparatively little modification. We have (or 

 had) the two Meliphagine genera, Acrulocercus and 

 Chcctoptila — the latter, indeed, beyond anatomical exa- 

 mination, but showing no very great external devia- 

 tion from well-known Australian types ; while the 

 former undoubtedly retains the normal Meliphagine 

 tongue. To these may be added Chasiempis, a well- 

 marked genus ; but, without question, very nearly allied 

 to the genus Rhipidura, so widely spread over the 

 Australian Region, and found also in New Zealand. Thus 

 three genera constitute, so far as I am able to see, the 

 " Australian " element in the avifauna of the Sandwich 

 Islands — and what are they among so many others P"^ 

 More recently than this Australian infusion, has super- 

 vened an influx of Holarctic types, and especially of the 

 Fringillidce. Whether these have arrived from America 

 or Asia, I do not pretend to say ; but the long chain of 

 islets running to the westward— one of which produces a 

 remarkable form {Telespiza cantans), the knowledge of 

 which we also owe to Mr. Wilson {Ibis, 1890, pp. 339-341 j 

 Plate ix.)— suggests the possibility of an Asiatic origin, 

 a possibility confirmed by the consideration that his fine 

 Chloridops kona may be the magnified descendant of the 

 long-known Chloris kawarahiba, which has already an 

 enterprising relative, C. kittlitsi{lbis, 1890, p. 101), estab- 

 lished in the Bonin Islands. Still later must have been 

 the appearance on the scene of members of the genera 

 Corvus and Buteo, both of which are, so far as as yet 

 known, confined to Hawaii, the most eastern of the islands, 

 and therefore suggest an emigration from the Nearctic 

 area. These have been settled long enough to assume 

 recognizable specific characters ; but an apparently more 

 modern colonist exists in Asio accipitrinus, the common 

 Short-eared OwlofAsia,Europe,and North America, which 

 extends its range over many islands in the Pacific Ocean, 

 so far at least as the Galapagos, and has found a perma- 

 nent home in the Sandwich Isles, breeding there, as it 

 would seem, regularly — as it once did in England, and 

 would again, if permitted by the gamekeepers. More 

 than this, there is an indication that the tendency to 

 colonization from the Holarctic region still continues. 

 Within an hour or two of his leaving the islands, there 

 was sent to Mr. Wilson a freshly-killed example of Circus 

 hudsonius — the American Hen-Harrier — a species which 

 he had already ascertained to have before occurred in 

 the group ; but, not being recognized by Judge Dole, it 

 had been endowed with a new name, and figures in his 

 second list as Accipitcr hawaii. The existence in con- 

 siderable numbers of a Californian species of Carpodacus 

 is thought, and no doubt rightly, by Mr. Wilson to be 



I In connexion herewith may be noticed ihe absence of Parrots, King- 

 fishers, and JDoves — all Families that are very characttristic of an " Austra- 

 lian' Fauna. 



