PROSPECTUS. 



The Author was induced to visit the Sandwich Islands in the belief that he would be 

 able to throw some light on the Geographical Distribution of the species which con- 

 stitute the very peculiar Avifauna of this Archipelago. In the course of the eighteen 

 months that he passed on the beautiful islands which compose it, he was so fortunate 

 as to find that his success had been beyond his most sanguine expectation, and that he 

 was not only in a position to solve several problems which had hitherto puzzled 

 ornithologists, but that he had added largely to the list of the indigenous species — of 

 which all the land-birds and several of the water-birds are absolutely peculiar to the 

 Hawaiian group. 



Another consideration which prompted the Author was the opinion expressed by 

 many competent judges that several of the native species of birds were in process of 

 extirpation, through the destruction of the forests and the introduction of foreign rivals— 

 if, indeed, this process had not in some instances been completed. His subsequent 

 investigations have shown that this opinion was only too well-founded, and that a few 

 species had certainly become extinct, while the fate of a good many more is to all 

 appearance decided. Most fortunately there existed in Honolulu an ornithological 

 collection begun many years ago, and from that he was enabled to acquire specimens 

 of several species which by all report have not been seen alive for more than a quarter 

 of a century. 



Though the Sandwich Islands were discovered in January, 1778, by Captain Cook, 

 who, it will be remembered, met his death on one of them in the following year, and 

 specimens of about a dozen species of their birds were soon after described by Latham 

 in his ' General Synopsis,' examples of even the most common species have always been 

 rare in collections, and there are now some important Museums which seem not to 

 possess a single specimen from the Hawaiian group. Moreover, the descriptions and 

 figures of those which have since been published have been scattered throughout many 

 works, most of them not easy of access, whether in the accounts of Voyages performed 

 by private adventurers or by the ships of various Governments — as, for instance, that of 

 the French frigate Venus, the Vincennes and the Peacock of the United States' Exploring 

 Expedition, and of H.M.SS. Blonde and Challenger — or, again, in the publications of 

 various learned Societies. 



In 1869, a most laudable and in some respects successful attempt to compile a 

 List of the Birds of the Hawaiian Islands was made by Mr. Sanford B. Dole — now 



