l8 Bcniicc P. Bishop Miiscitiii — Bullclin 



The committee in charge of the expedition has formulated its plans 

 and conducted its field operations with a view solely to the advancement 

 of scientific research in the Pacific. To quote from the report of Dr. 

 Murphy : 



While the expedition is primarily ornithological, no opportunity has been lost 

 to obtain desirable material and data in other branches of science, particularly at 

 the many Polynesian islands where the native peoples and fauna are rapidly dying 

 out or are altering materially with changing conditions. With this object in mind, 

 the Museum has co-operated in all possible ways with other institutions that are 

 carrying on research in the Pacific. The Bernice P. Bishop Museum of Honolulu, 

 for example, is now a center of Pacific investigations, coordinated under the ad- 

 ministration of Professor Herbert E. Gregory, who is serving as Director. The 

 Committee of the Whitney Expedition lias been from the beginning in close touch 

 with Professor Gregory and has sought his advice on many details. The members 

 of the Expedition have been instructed to undertake special lines of collecting 

 which do not interfere with their main objects, to offer transportation whenever 

 possible to the field workers of the Bishop Museum and of other scientific organiza- 

 tions, and in general to further the cause of Pacific investigation by selecting fields 

 of endeavor which lead toward cooperation rather than competition. It has been 

 decided, for instance, to leave the ornithological investigation of the Hawaiian 

 islands and of certain neighboring groups, such as Midway. Johnston, Palmyra and 

 Washington islands, to the Bishop Museum, and to confine the efforts of the Whitney 

 Expedition, for the present at least, to the southerly and easterly islands of Poly- 

 nesia, from Samoa and the Marquesas southward and eastward to the Austral group 

 and Easter Island. In order that the American Museum of Natural History may 

 obtain a full representation of the avian fauna of the Pacific Basin, however, a com- 

 prehensive exchange of material has been arranged, and the Museum has already 

 received from Honolulu an important collection of Hawaiian birds, which gives it 

 a very nearly complete series of the scarce or extinct Drcpanididae as well as other 

 interesting and peculiar birds of the archipelago. 



The first two years of the Whitney South Sea Expedition indicate the 

 remarkable zoological and geographical results to be anticipated. More 

 than three thousand bird skins with representative collections of nests, eggs 

 and stomachs have been obtained : botanical, zoological and ethnological 

 material has been gathered at many islands ; and a mass of geogra]5hic in- 

 formation has been recorded. 



The collections show that the birds of the South Pacific trade wind 

 belt are for the most part specifically and generically distinct from those in 

 the southern "horse latitudes" and that each large insular group and 

 even some small islets have distinctive species. Several of the species of 

 birds collected have been heretofore listed as extinct. 



Investig.m'ioxs in the Society Isl.ands 



Extensive researches in the Marquesas and the Austral Islands, and 

 reconnaissance studies in Tahiti indicate the need of fuller knowledge of 



