INTRODUCTION, xix 



Hawaii, the most eastern of the islands, and therefore suggest an emigration from the 

 Nearctic area. These have been settled long enough to assume recognizable specific 

 characters ; but an apparently more modern colonist exists in Asio accipitrinus, the 

 common Short-eared Owl of Asia, Europe, and North America, which extends its 

 range over many islands in the Pacific Ocean, so far at least as the Galapagos, 

 and has found a permanent home in the Sandwich Isles, breeding there, as it 

 would seem, regularly— as it does in England, when permitted by the gamekeepers. 

 More than this, there is an indication that the tendency to colonization from the 

 Holarctic region still continues. Within an hour or two of his leaving the islands, 

 there was sent to Mr. Wilson a freshly-killed example of Circus hudsonius — the 

 American Hen-Harrier — a species which he had already ascertained to have before 

 occurred in the group ; but, not being recognized by Judge Dole, it had been endowed 

 with a new name, and figures in his second list as Accipiter hawaii. The existence in 

 considerable numbers of a Californian species of Carpodacus is thought, and no 

 doubt rightly, by Mr. Wilson to be due to human agency, and accordingly I do not 

 attach any importance to that fact ; but there is one very puzzling species, of which 

 only a few specimens seem to have been preserved, that needs particular attention. 

 This was described by Judge Dole under the name of ' Fringilla anna,' but, of course, 

 is no true Fringilla. Mr. Wilson brought home but a single specimen, which he 

 owed to the kindness of the Hon. C. R. Bishop, it having been formerly in the Mills 

 Collection, and subsequently established for it a new genus, Ciridops — so named 

 because its bright coloration recalls the well-known Fmberiza ciris of Linngeus, the 

 Painted Bunting of authors, or 'Nonpareil' of bird-dealers. It is supposed to be 

 now almost if not quite extinct, but it was truly a native species. It probably belongs 

 to the fauna which I have above called ' Columbian ' ; but I cannot suppose it to have 

 been so early a settler as the Drepanididce, since it has changed so little. 



" There remains of land-birds the genus Fkceornis, which earlier systematists were 

 inclined to put among the Flycatchers {Muscicapidce). The examples in spirit, placed 

 by Mr. Wilson at Dr. Gadow's disposal, have enabled the latter to set aside that view, 

 and to show that, of all the families to which this genus has been supposed to be 

 allied, ' it differs least from the TurdidcB' and he would regard it ' as a generalized 

 or rather primitive Thrush '" 1 . 



From the summer of 1889 Professor Newton had been urging Mr. Wilson to return 

 to the Islands and complete their ornithological exploration ; for it was obvious that 

 much remained to do, and what he had done gave promise of still more important 

 results. Mr. Wilson being then unable to arrange for a second visit, Prof. Newton 

 brought the subject before the British Association at the Leeds Meeting in September 

 1890, and obtained the appointment of a Committee, with Prof, (now Sir William) 



] "A minute anatomical comparison with the New Zealand Turnagra would be desirable." 



