XX INTRODUCTION. 



Flower as Chairman and Dr. David Sharp as Secretary, to investigate the Fauna of the 

 Islands, the sum of £100 being voted to assist their labours. On this slender bene- 

 faction a gentleman offered his services to proceed immediately to the Islands as an 

 ornithological collector, and Prof. Newton was very anxious that they should be 

 accepted 1 ; but the Committee thought it advisable to obtain further pecuniary help, 

 especially from the Hawaiian Government, and through the delay entailed in negotia- 

 tions to this end the grant was allowed to lapse, and thus a whole year was lost, though 

 meanwhile, in 1891, the Government Grant Committee of the Royal Society had 

 voted £200 for the same purpose. In August of that year the British Association 

 re-appointed the Sandwich Islands Committee, renewing the grant and empowering it 

 to co-operate with the Committee appointed by the Royal Society. The Joint 

 Committee thus formed met and, from several candidates, selected Mr. R. C. L. Perkins, 

 B.A., of Jesus College, Oxford, as their collector, and that gentleman accordingly left 

 England for Honolulu, where he arrived in March 1892, and remained diligently 

 exploring the various islands until the end of the summer of 1894, when he returned to 

 England ; but, at the request of the Joint Committee, again departed early in the 

 following year, reaching Honolulu in March 1895, and stayed in the Islands for two 

 years longer, the expenses incurred during the later portion of his time being defrayed 

 almost wholly by the Trustees of the Berniae Pauahi Bishop Museum. His collections 

 in all branches of zoology are very large, and the results are being by degrees published ; 

 but here it is only necessary to mention his ornithological achievements. The loss of 

 the season of 1891 was unfortunate for the credit of the Joint Committee ; for many 

 discoveries which its collector, had one been sent out in that year, could not have 

 failed making fell to the lot of the persons employed by Mr. Rothschild in 1890-92, 

 and the only new species of bird discovered by Mr. Perkins was the Drepanis funerea, 

 which, thanks to the Joint Committee, was first figured in the present work ; but that 

 gentleman brought back a very fine series of almost every other species now existing in 

 the Islands, of which the first set has been deposited in the British Museum, the second 

 and third in the Museums of Cambridge and Honolulu respectively. The specimens 

 obtained by Mr. Rothschild's collectors are, naturally, at Tring. Mr. Perkins was most 

 successful on his second visit in obtaining specimens of several species not found on his 

 first expedition, owing to want of time. 



The " Further Remarks on the Relationships of the Drepanididse " with which 

 Dr. Gadow has favoured this work contribute not a little to the difficulty of the 

 Authors in determining the systematic position of many of the forms of Passeres 

 described in the following pages. That these " Remarks " contain valuable considera- 

 tions is obvious ; but it will be observed that the Doctor, in arriving at his latest 

 conclusions, expresses himself with some caution, and the Authors would exercise a 



1 When it is mentioned that this gentleman was Mr, Lionel W. "Wiglesworth, who subsequently compiled 

 the ' Aves Polynesise/ and has been, with Dr. A. B. Meyer of Dresden, joint author of ' The Birds of Celebes,' 

 the wish to accept his offer may be thought justified. 



