HAWAIIAir BIRDS. 97 



ate day when the mongoose came upon the scene. So far as the 

 jird is concerned the matter is of no consequence since either 

 memy, cat or mongoose, was, unaided, quite capable of conx- 

 jassing its destruction. 



Of the range and the habits of the moho we know very little. 

 [ am inclined to believe that forty or fifty years ago the nsohO' 

 ranged over a considerable portion of the windward side of the 

 island, but not far above the sea. 



The late Judge Austin told me that years ago it was not un- 

 :ommon as far north along the coast as Onomea, and that on one 

 Dccasion a native showed him a moho's nest with eggs, which was 

 built in the grass close to a cane field. The late D. H. Hitchcock 

 ilso informed me that less than forty years ago the moho lived on 

 the edge of the woods not far above the town of Hilo, and that a 

 nest with eggs was shown to him in situ by some boys. Thus it 

 would appear that the moho ranged from somewhere near the vol- 

 cano northward for forty miles or so along the coast and, per- 

 haps, much farther. That the moho ever inhabited the dense 

 woods of Olaa, as I find many people believe, is in the last degree 

 doubtful. Mr. Mills' specimens, it is true, are supposed to have 

 come from Olaa though their exact locality is unknown. Mr^ 

 Wilson states that Hawelu, the native who collected them, lived 

 it the former half-way house on the old Volcano trail, and it was. 

 probably in the rather open country that here interposes betweea 

 the woods and the sea that the moho lived. 



A report is current in Hilo that when the Volcano road was. 

 being finished (about 1893) a moho was seen close to the road and 

 some five miles east of the Volcano House. I have not been able- 

 to verify this report which, if true, brings the existence of the bird'. 

 down to recent times, but the locality indicated is of all others the- 

 Dne in which I should expect to find this rail. The pahoehoe at: 

 this point is covered with a dense matting of mosses, lichens and', 

 ferns, above which rises in clumps a scattering growth of scrub,. 

 :onsisting of small ohias, berry-bearing trees, large ferns, vacci- 

 tiium, ukiuki and many others. Even in dry weather the regioni 

 is boggy and in wet weather it is a morass. Such a locality may 

 well have been the last stronghold of the moho. In 1887 Mr. Wil- 



7-H B 



