704 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. liVI, No. 1460 



Sea Expedition has no more than fairly begun, 

 but the speoimens akeady received at the Muse- 

 um have given a foretaste of the remarkable 

 zoological and geographical results that are to 

 be anticipated. The material comprises the f<Jl- 

 lowing : 



1. More than 3,000 bird skins, together with 

 representative collections of birds preserved in 

 alcohol, nests and eggs, and the stomachs of 

 specimens prepared as skins. The contents of 

 the bii-d stomachs are to analysed and reported 

 upon by members of the staflE of the United 

 States Biological Survey. 



2. A collection of reptiles, including lizards 

 from nearly all the islands visited, as well as 

 marine turtles. Although the lizards are rep- 

 resented by but a small number of species, the 

 aggregation constitutes one of the few collec- 

 tions sent to the United States from Polynesia 

 since the days of the Wilkes Expedition of 

 1828-1834. A 'duplicate set of reptiles has been 

 forwarded to the Bishop Museum. 



3. Herbarium collections made by Mr. Quayle 

 at the Society Islands, Austral Islands and 

 elsewhere. The plant specimens have, for the 

 most part, been sent to the Bishop Museum for 

 debennination, only one set of duplicates being 

 retained in New York. 



4. Photographs illustrating not only the birds 

 and other wild animals of the places visited, 

 but also interesting features of the topography, 

 vegetation and the appearance and life of the 

 native peoples. 



5. Approximately 3,500 pages of manuscript 

 notes, prepared by Messrs Beck and Quayle, 

 which not only supply a narrative of the expe- 

 dition, and a running comment upon the or- 

 nithological field work, but also throw light 

 upon many phases of Polynesian life condi- 

 tions. 



The birds received from the Whitney South 

 Sea Expedition demonstrate that Polynesia is 

 one of the greatest remaining fields for ornitho- 

 logical investigation. They comprise thus far 

 about a hundred forms, of not more than twen- 

 ty-five families, but they 'aa-e all represented in 

 splendid series, and some of them are among 

 the raa-est of known birds. Several of the spec- 



ies were, in fact, listed in EothschUd's mono- 

 graph on "Extinct Birds" (1907). Many of 

 them are of much historic importance in that 

 the status of the species has heretofore rested 

 entirely upon desoiiptions dating from the 

 golden age of exploration, when Bougainville, 

 James Cook, and other discovereirs, brought 

 back to Europe the first collections from Poly- 

 nesia. The warbler (Conopoderas cequinoctialis) 

 of Christmas Island, for example, has not here- 

 tofore been i-epresented in any collection, and 

 was known only from the faulty description 

 of Latham. The beautiful fruit pigeon (Ptilo- 

 pus huttoni) of Rapa had previously been 

 known only from the type skin in the Museum, 

 at Turin; and there are many other examples. 

 Finally, a relatively large proportion of the 

 birds obtained prove to be new to science. 



The sea birds, as well as many of the insular 

 land birds, of Polynesia, throw much lig'ht upon 

 broad questions of geographical distribution. 

 The collections of the Whitney Expedition 

 show, for instance, that the birds of the tropical 

 trade wind belt in the South Pacific are, for the 

 most part, specifically or racially distinct from 

 those inhabiting the Horse Latitudes fai-ther 

 south. The terrestrial avifauna is not particu- 

 larly extensive, but it proves highly interesting. 

 As an example, the war^blei-s of the genus 

 Conopoderas appear to exhibit on a vastly 

 larger scale the evolutionai-y fades of 

 the Galapagos finches. Each large insular 

 group in Polj'.nesia seems to have its peculiar 

 species of this genus, while in some eases every 

 islet within a single archipelago has a well- 

 marked geographic race, the range of which 

 may not be greater than the isolated surface 

 of but a few acres. 



Since Mr. Beck left the United States he has 

 from time to time seat home narrative accounts 

 of great general interest, which have been pub- 

 lished in "Natural History," the Journal of 

 the American Museum. At the present time 

 Messrs. Beck and Quayle are working from, the 

 "Prance" among the Marquesas Islands, whence 

 additional reports and shipments of material 

 are expected early in 1923. 



EOBEET CUSHMAN MuRPHT 



