FOREWORD. 



The following preliminary key to the birds of the Hawaiian possessions is based on a study 

 of the colle<flion of birds in the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, which institution now possesses the 

 most representative colledlion of the Hawaiian avifauna extant. The coUedlion at this time num- 

 bers upwards of six hundred specimens, embracing the famous Mills colledtion, a .series of skins 

 colledled by Mr. Palmer for the Rothschild museum, a valuable coUecflion made by Mr. R. C. L. 

 Perkins, together with colle<5lions by Messrs. W H. Hall, F. Gay, A. F. Judd, and others. To the 

 above colle(5lion almost daily additions are now being made through the efforts of the Museum's 

 skilled colledlor, Mr. A. Scale. 



By the Hawaiian possessions it is intended to include all of the chain composed of some twenty 

 or more islands lying in'the central North Pacific ocean, stretching over an area extending from about 

 150'' West Longitude to 175° East Longitude, and from 18° to 30° North Latitude. 



Though following the scheme usually adopted by systematic zoologists in the making of ana- 

 lytical keys there is some slight difference in the arrangement of the text. Since it may be necessary 

 for persons not entirely familiar with keys to make use of the following pages, it might be well to say 

 that the fundamental charadlers are used for the separation and identification of species instead of 

 lengthy and oftentimes misleading detailed descriptions. To facilitate this, dichotomous antithesis is 

 stridlly adhered to, so that there are but two alternatives ; the specimen must conform to the characters 

 given, for example, under a, or the whole matter under a, — that is, the sub-heads b, bb, C, CC, etc., 

 (if there are anj') must be passed over until aa is arrived at, whiqh is of equal value with and the only 

 alternative of the division a. If it is settled that the specimen corresponds with the charadlers given 

 under aa, the next step is to settle between the heads b and bb, then pass to c and CC, and so on, 

 taking up the charadlers in their natural order until finally the reference page is given, where the 

 key will be found continued. Thus the key to the higher orders will be found on the last pages of 

 the Memoir, and will indicate the order to which the bird belongs and the page where the order is 

 treated. Similarly the order will be broken up into families, the families into genera, and lastly the 

 genera into species. The index letters are in bold type, and charadlers of equal value are placed 

 immediately under each other, while the minor divisions are indented farther and farther to the right. 

 Hence bb is found set in an equal distance from the left-hand margin as b; CC is still farther indented, 

 but the same distance as c, while the body of the text extends the full distance across the page. 



The measurements are, for the mo.st part, taken from specimens in the Bishop Museum, and 

 are given in English inches and hundredths. The length of the wing is measured from the bend 

 {i. e., the carpal joint) to the tip of the longest primary. The length of the tail is from the apparent 

 base to the tip of longest feather. The length of the culmen is the distance from the base of the 

 upper mandible on top to the tip of the same in a straight line. This measurement, as well as all of 

 the more exact ones, are best taken with the dividers. The depth of the bill is a vertical line from 



[259] (iii) 



