PALMER'S DIARY. 



(Di.) 19 



[Tsittirostra olivacea. — W. R.], but neither Mr. Perkins nor I did meet with them 

 anywhere. 



" Besides the Mynahs, which are a great nuisance to the islands, and the Doves, Quails, 

 and Pheasants, there are Skylarks here, which were only introduced a few years ago. It was 

 quite an enchantment to hear them singing up in the air, just as in the old country. 



" Unfortunately my good dog, which was always so useful to me, especially in finding 

 specimens even in the thickest jungle, fell very ill." 



Only on April 10th the first specimen of Akikiki (Oreomyza maculata (Cab.)) was seen 

 and shot, and of which a fine series was brought together during the rest of the stay on Oahu, 



About the middle of April Palmer states that on several days he saw a certain number 

 of nests, but all on inaccessible trees. 



Even in considerable heights in the mountains Palmer saw a great number of rats, and 

 on one day killed three up in the trees. There can be no doubt, he thinks, that these, too, 

 are very destructive to bird-life. 



On the 20th April the only specimen of Loxops was shot by Palmer's assistant Wolsten- 

 holme, and therefore I named it in honour of its discoverer Loxops wolstenholmei, not having 

 found out at the time that it really was Loxops rufa (Bloxam). 



On May 3rd Palmer rode over to Waianae on the other side of the island, that is the 

 west side. On this excursion Palmer saw a specimen of Circus hudsonius (Linn.). 



After having collected on several more places in the hills, Palmer left Oahu on 

 June 13th, 1893. He has made a most interesting collection of the native birds he found 

 on that island, all in sufficiently large series for complete descriptions of the plumage, except 

 the small Loxops, of which he could not find a second specimen, although he evidently tried 

 his best to do so. 



Over and over again Palmer mentions the rarity of native birds. He expressly says 

 that there are still great forests full of lofty trees which might be the home of many more 

 birds. He learned that the birds were much more numerous about 20 years ago, and in this 

 he is undoubtedly right. The reasons why the birds became so rare are many. Much of 

 course is due to the destruction of forest, which covered most of the pasture-grounds of the 

 present day, but there is still so much forest that this alone cannot be the cause of the 

 supposed disappearance of more than one species. There are the enormous number of 

 introduced birds, especially the troublesome Mynahs, which do much harm to all sorts 

 of small birds; there are the numerous rats, the many cats that run wild everywhere; the 

 more numerous population of Oahu; but all this does, in Palmer's opinion, not sufficiently 

 account for the disappearance of so many birds. There is, as Palmer justly believes, one 

 more reason, and this one we do not quite know. It is not impossible that some climatic or 

 other change took place, of which we know nothing definite at present, though I suspect that 

 it is due to inherent weakness in the stock. 



Palmer also says that he is told collecting was much easier before, because the under- 

 growth was much less thick than now, but this lacks proof. Further on, Palmer concludes 

 that it is impossible for anyone to say whether those species, that neither Wilson, nor Perkins, 

 nor Palmer himself have found, are really extinct or not ; for, as he says, " there are birds 

 which are so rare that one mig ht hunt the mountains for twelve months without discovering 



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