Report of a Visit to Midway Island. 37 



brown, varied with drab; a patch of orange-brown scales behind 

 the tip of the pectoral; teeth white; iris yellow; upper and lower 

 lip dark red; an irregular dark red patch on the side of the head, 

 which is followed behind and below by a number of scale marks 

 of the same color; dorsal and anal about equal in height; dorsal 

 light brown, passing into blackish-brown posteriorly, everywhere 

 mottled with drab and brown of different shades; a blackish spot 

 on the first and second membrane; pectoral uniform brown: ven- 

 trals drab-brown, the outer rays bluish-drab; anal drab-brown, 

 brownish at the margin; caudal uniform umber-brown. 



The type (B. P. B. Museum No. 3366) here described was 

 secured in the Honolulu market February 12, 1903, and is 9.5 

 inches in length. (Fig. 8.) 



Report of a Visit to Midway Island. 



WM. ALANSON BRYAN. 



Introduction. 



During the months of July and August, 1902, the writer made 

 a voyage in the schooner Julia E. Whalen to the small and isolated 

 Marcus Island, in the interest of the Bishop Museum, to investi- 

 gate its fauna and flora.' On the return vo3age we called at Mid- 

 way, and I w^as thus afforded an opportunity to see this small and 

 then seldom visited island. Since our call was the last one to be 

 made prior to the taking over of the island as a cable station, it 

 seems that a brief account of the obser\-ations made during the 

 day and a half on shore will not be out of place, especially since the 

 island had been visited but once before by an ornithologist. It is 

 hoped that the notes here given may in the future prove of value 

 in noting the change in the plant and bird life which will doubtless 

 be effected through the influence of the colony that has since been 

 permanently established there. 



As a matter of convenience the Hawaiian group has been 

 divided into the windward or inhabited islands and the leeward or 

 uninhabited chain. It is to this latter division that Midway be- 

 longs. Beginning at Niihau, the most western of the heretofore 



' Br>-an. Monograph of Marcus Island. Occ. Pa. B. P. B. Mus., vol. ii, no. i. pp. 77-140 

 (1903)- 



[291] 



