10 HAWAIIAN BIRDS. 



wherever the koa grows, and occasionally increase to countless 

 myriads, when it stips every koa tree in its district. 



This wholesale destruction of forest will soon materially dimin- 

 ish the number of Hawaiian birds — nay, already has done so — 

 and in a few years the opportunity to study the habits of some of 

 the unique bird forms which have been developed upon these 

 islands will be lost forever. 



ENVIROMENTAL CHANGES DISASTROUS TO HAWAIIAN BIRDS. 



In connection with the disappearance of Hawaiian birds in past 

 times, it should not be forgotten that, like all insular forms of 

 life among which competition is slight or altogether wanting, 

 they suffer much from slight adverse conditions, and even be- 

 come extinct when the causes seem wholly inadequate. In the 

 Island of Hawaii, the thinning out of a forest tract, nay, the cut- 

 ting down of a certain portion on the edges of a large forest, is 

 almost sure to be followed, sooner or later, by the almost com- 

 plete abandonment of the tract by all its avian inhabitants. So, 

 too, the making of a road through a forest, with the limited 

 passing trafl&c, seems to have a disturbing influence upon Ha- 

 waiian birds absurdly out of proportion to the cause. 



The author has lived in Hawaii only six years, but within 

 this time large areas of forest, which are yet scarcely touched by 

 the axe save on the edges and except for a few trails, have be- 

 come almost absolute solitude. One may spend hours in them 

 and not hear the note of a single native bird. Yet a few years ago 

 these same areas were abundantly supplied with native birds, and 

 the notes of the oo, amakihi, iiwi, akakani, omao, elepaio and 

 others might have been heafd on all sides. The ohia blossoms 

 as freely as it used to and secretes abundant nectar for the iiwi, 

 akakani and amakihi. The ieie still fruits, and offers its crimson 

 spike of seeds, as of old, to the ou. So far as human eye can 

 see, their old home offers to the birds practically all that it used 

 to, but the birds themselves are no longer there. 



It is more reasonable to conclude that the former inhabitants 

 of such tracts have abandoned them for the more profound soli- 

 tudes higher up than that they have perished from such slight 



