xil INTRODUCTION. 



the intermediate islands— Mowee (Maui), Lanai, and Morotai (Molokai)— making once 

 more for Atooi (Kauai) and Oneehow (Niihau), the last famous for its yams. Then, 

 on March 15, they bore away again to the northward and did not return. 



"Now the object of giving here these details is to shew that the natural-history 

 specimens obtained by Cook's ships were procured only on the islands of Hawaii, 

 Kauai, and Niihau. This is the more needful because the first descriptions of any 

 of the birds of the Sandwich Isles were given, with two exceptions, by Latham in 

 his < General Synopsis of Birds,' published in 1781-85, and most of the specimens 

 so described no longer exist. Some were in the British Museum or the collection of 

 Sir Joseph Banks, afterwards transferred thereto; the rest were in the Leverian 

 Museum. In the former, as is well known, not one remains; but fortunately, at 

 the breaking up of the last in 1806, a few were bought by the then Lord Stanley, who 

 (dying in 1851, as thirteenth Earl of Derby and President of the Zoological Society) 

 bequeathed his collection to the town of Liverpool, and there, thanks to the care 

 that has been taken of them, they still exist in fair condition. A few more were 

 bought for the private collection of the then Emperor of Austria, and are still 

 carefully preserved in the Museum of Vienna 1 . Of several of the species it is not 

 known that any other specimens were brought to Europe until some three years 

 ago. On both of Cook's previous voyages qualified naturalists had been sent ; but 

 the arrangements for publishing their discoveries were so imperfect that little 

 credit followed to anyone concerned. On this, his third and last voyage, there 

 was no expert, though Mr. William Ellis, who in an irregularly published narrative 

 calls himself ' Assistant Surgeon to both vessels,' was somewhat of a draughtsman, 

 and made a series of sketches, which, becoming the property of Banks, subsequently 

 passed to the British Museum. The commoner species of Sandwich-Island birds are 

 generally recognizable, but others are so unhappily limned that even the word 

 caricature (which always implies some likeness) seems too strong to apply to them. 

 Nevertheless Mr. G. B. Gray adventured to determine all of them. 



" More than a quarter of a century passed before any further progress was made in the 

 knowledge of the zoology of the Sandwich Isles, though they were visited by numerous 

 ships, and in 1794 were ceded to Britain under Vancouver. In 1814 an attempt was made 

 to seize them for Bussia ; and Kotzebue, whose voyage has so much scientific interest, 

 Was there in 1816-17, but the accomplished naturalists, Chamisso and Eschscholtz, who 

 were with him, took little heed of the fauna of the islands 2 . 



" The year 1822 saw the arrival of the more celebrated William Ellis, whose missionary 

 labours throughout the Pacific and in Madagascar are so widely known. The Sandwich 

 Isles had by this time fallen under the sway of the conquering Kamehameha I., whose 

 son and successoi-, desirous of seeing European civilization, arrived in England in 1824 

 with his wife — both to die of measles within a few weeks. The British Government 

 determined to send their remains for interment in Honolulu, by that time become the 



1 See Von Pelzeln, 'Ibis,' 1873, pp. 14-54; 1874, p. 462. 



2 " The same negative results attended his second -visit in 1824-25." 



