HAWAUAN BIRDS. 23 



Of nice scientific discriminations of form and structure the 

 natives knew little and cared less and, according to modern ideas, 

 their classification was decidedly crude. 



The birds that found place in their myths and legends, like the 

 elepaid and pueo, and those that were important in their domes- 

 tic economy, like the duck and plover, which they ate, and the 

 mamo, oo and iiwi, whose feathers were valued for decoration, 

 they naturally knew well and had distinctive names for. Indeed 

 for some species, Hke the iiwi, they had several names, the pre- 

 cise meaning and application of which we do not now know. 

 They even called the iiwi in its first or speckled plumage iiwi 

 popolo, though they must have been well aware of its relationship 

 to the adult bird. 



Closely allied species, as we now know them to be, they fie- 

 quently called by the same name, either not noting the difference 

 or, as is perhaps more likely, not thinking the differences im- 

 portant enough to be worth naming. The several species of ama- 

 kihi are examples. Soo, too, upon the island of Hawaii, amakihi 

 is applied to both the Chlorodrepanis virens and the Oreomyza 

 mana. 



A few birds appear to have been so rare and so local that they 

 were quite unknown to the natives; at all events they seem not 

 to have been named by them. The Viridonia, which is confined 

 to a very small area of dense forest on either side of the Wailuku 

 river, Hawaii, is a conspicuous example of this kind. The writer 

 has shown skins of this bird to a number of natives reputed to 

 be well acquainted with Hawaiian birds — one of whom was born 

 within Viridonia's territory — ^but none of them had ever seen it 

 alive or could give it a name. One of the old men, indeed, main- 

 tained its identity with the amakihi, although it is nearly twice 

 the size of that bird and by no means of the same color. 



But in ancient times, no doubt, as above stated, the knowledge 

 of birds was far more widely spread among the Hawaiians and 

 more accurate than it is today. Indeed the younger generation 

 are almost absolutely ignorant even of the names of the birds, and 

 are quite ignorant of their habits. 



In the olden days when it was an important part of their i^-ury 



