I. THE SHORE FISHES OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, 
WITH A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF 
THE FISH FAUNA. 
By DAVID STARR JORDAN and BARTON WARREN EVERMANN. 
HISTORICAL REVIEW. 
EARLIER INVESTIGATIONS. 
That group of mid-Pacific islands now known as the Hawaiian Islands was dis¬ 
covered January 18, 1778, by Capt. James Cook, when on his third voyage around 
the world in the years 1776—177'.*, and was called by him the Sandwich Islands, in 
honor of his friend and patron, the Earl of Sandwich. Captain Cook's ship, the 
Resolution , left the islands on February 2, but returned, and Mowee (Maui) was dis¬ 
covered November 26. 1778, and Owyhee (Hawaii) four days afterwards. The vessel 
then spent seven weeks cruising about and examining the coasts of the islands, and 
on .January 17. 1779, anchored in the harbor of Karakakooa (Kealakekua), where she 
remained until February 4. Leaving on that date, she put back again on account of 
a storm on the 11th, and on February 14 Captain Cook was killed by the natives. 
I n the “ Narrative” of Captain Cook's voyages occasional brief references to fishes 
are found, but they contain very little of value or interest, and there is nothing to 
indicate any effort to preserve and carry home collections from the different islands 
visited. 
Captain Cook was accompanied" on his first voyage, however, by Joseph Banks 
and Dr. Daniel Solander, who evidently preserved a few fishes which were afterwards 
deposited in the “Museum of Banks." Among these was a specimen of a clnetodont 
which Banks himself obtained at the Society Islands. Another specimen of the same 
species was obtained at the Sandwich Islands by some member of Captain Cook's third 
voyage and found its way into the same museum. These two specimens were described 
in 1782 by Broussonet in his “ Ichthyologia " as Chsetodon longirostrix, a perfectly good 
species, which Jordan and McGregor made the type of their new genus Forcipiger in 
1898. Forcipiger ■ longIrostris (Broussonet) is therefore the first species of fish ever 
recorded from the Hawaiian Islands. 
So far as we have been -able to determine, the first actual collection of fishes 
made at the Hawaiian Islands was that obtained by the royal French corvette Franlr 
“Captain Cook was accompanied on his first voyage by '“Joseph Banks, esq. (later Sir Joseph 
Banks, hart,) and Doctor Solander, who, in the prime of life, and the first of them at great expense to 
himself, quitted all the gratifications of polished society and engaged in a very tedious, fatiguing, and 
hazardous navigation, with the laudable views of acquiring knowledge in general, of promoting natural 
knowledge in particular, and of contributing something to the improvement and happiness of the rude 
inhabitants of the earth.” 
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