HAWAIIAN BIRDS. 21 



the many specimens of hawks he has examined, but Mr. W. 

 Newell tells me that he has seen hawks thus affected. 



There are certain localities, as in Olaa, where in some seasons 

 a considerable percentage of the birds collected show unmistake- 

 able tokens of this disease, past or present. 



Sometimes the tumors are as large as peas, and it would seem 

 that their presence must seriously incommode the bird's move- 

 ments if nothing more. Evidence, however, is not wanting to 

 show that frequently such tumors have serious consequences. The 

 writer has seen a number of birds that had lost one and even two, 

 toes from one foot, and he remembers one specimen in which the 

 ankle joint was so much involved that it seemed probable that 

 the whole foot would eventually have sloughed off. Often, how- 

 ever, the tumors slough away with little or no damage, save to 

 leave the integument rough and thickened. 



Nor are the tumors confined exclusively to the feet of birds, for 

 several have been shot which had large tumors around the rictus 

 of the bill. 



Dr. Nicholas Russel, of Olaa, has kindly examined under the 

 microscope slides made from two specimens, and he pronounces 

 the tumors to be of undoubted bacillic origin. 



There is little doubt that the bacilli are derived from the wet 

 bark of trees. All the birds affected with the disease, which I 

 have thus far examined, have come from the windward side of 

 Hawaii, where the annual rainfall is from 130 to 180 inches. 

 Upon this theory of origin it is easy to understand how the bacilli 

 occasionally infect the region of the mouth since the bird fre- 

 quently may be seen rubbing the bill and side of the mouth against 

 the branches to clean them ; and again in scratching the throat 

 and head the bacilli may readily be conveyed from the claws. 



ORIGIN OF HAWAIIAN BIRDS. 



There is no more in;teresting question concerning Hawaiian 

 birds than that relating to their origin. With the exception of a 

 few species that are evidently comparatively recent comers from 

 America, like the night heron, gallinule, marsh hawk and the 

 short-eared owl, Hawaiian birds are quite unlike any others. 



