Olson • THE EXTINCT HAWAIIAN GENUS CIRIDOPS 
671 
Museum Archives), which he kept in minute 
detail with every indication of scrupulous honesty. 
The last entry for 13 February 1892 is "Ulaaiha- 
wane specimen [$150.00.” At that time a payment 
of lifty dollars for a single specimen of bird would 
have been a truly extraordinary amount that must 
have excited attention throughout the island. 
Palmer used a conversion rate of £1 British 
sterling = —54.80, but there is probably little use 
in trying to comprehend the 1892 value of $50 in 
Hawaii in current dollars or pounds sterling. More 
useful is an indication of what that amount would 
purchase locally then in goods and services. The 
next entry in Palmer's account book was "Pur- 
chaste] one horse [$]60.00,” when a horse was 
probably the greatest single expense he had in the 
field. At the same time, he was paying Munro, a 
New Zealander. $25.00 per week for physically 
demanding but diligent and skilled labor. For 
local laborers, $50.00 must have represented an 
astronomical sum and the offer of such remuner¬ 
ation is a near certain indication that no more of 
the birds could be obtained regardless of the 
amount of effort expended. As further demonstra¬ 
tion of just how much Rothschild must have 
desired specimens of Ciridops, a little over 
2 months later Palmer paid half us much ($25.00 
on 20 Apr) for a living specimen of the Hawaii 
Mamo, which, like Ciridops anna, was the last of 
its kind ever taken. Without that last specimen of 
Ciridops. however, our much-expanded knowl¬ 
edge of the morphology of the genus would have 
gone unknown. Thus, in hindsight. $50 for the last 
Ciridops anna may have been one of most 
fortunate purchases Walter Rothschild ever made. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
This paper would not exist except for the generosity of the 
curators in charge of the following museums holding 
specimens of Ciridops. comparative material, and fossils: 
American Museum of Natural History, New York, (AMNH); 
The Natural History Museum, London, U.K.. formerly 
British Museum (Natural Historyt (BMNH): Bernice P. 
Bishop Museum. Honolulu. Hawaii (BPBM); Museum of 
Comparative Zoology. Harvard University. Cambridge, 
Massachusetts (MCZ); and National Museum of Natural 
History, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC. 
(USNM). I am much indebted to Ellen Alers, Smithsonian 
Institution Archives, for bringing the Brigham/Baird corre¬ 
spondence to light. I uni especially grateful to Julian P. Hume 
for his excellent paintings, for details of descriptions and 
measurements of certain specimens, and for inking my pencil 
sketches of myology. Carol P. Ralph and Stephanie Nagata 
deserve special commendation lor identification of gizzard 
contents. Helen James and Megan Spitzer supplied data and 
other information, especially for fossils. I thank Christine D. 
Bacon and Donald R. Hodcl for information and photographs 
of Pritchardiu palms and Warren Wagner for botanical 
advice. H. Douglas Pratt kindly provided information on his 
illustrations of C. anna. Stipple draw ings are by Jacquin B. 
Schulz. I am most grateful to Christina Gebhard and Brian 
Schmidt for photography and creation and composition of 
many of the figures. 
LITERATURE CITED 
Allen. H. G. 1988. Sanford Ballard Dole, Hawaii’s only 
President. 1844-1926. Arthur H. Clark Co.. Glendale. 
California. USA. 
AmadoN, D. 1944. Sanford Ballard Dole: early Hawaiian 
ornithologist. Elfipaio 5:12-13. 
Amapon, D. 1950. The Hawaiian honeycreepers (Aves, 
Drepaniidael. Bulletin of the American Museum of 
Natural History 95:151-262. 
American Ornithologists' Union tAOU). 1998. Check¬ 
list of North American birds. Seventh Edition. Amer¬ 
ican Ornithologists' Union. Washington. D.C., USA. 
ATHENS. J. S. 1997. Hawaiian native low land vegetation in 
prehistory. Pages 248-270 in Historical ecology in the 
Pacific Islands. P. V Kirch and T. L. Hunt. Editors. 
Yale University Press. New Haven, Connecticut. 
USA. 
ATHENS. J. S.. J. Ward, and S. Wickler. 1992. Late 
Holocene lowland vegetation. O’ahu. Hawaii. New 
Zealand Journal of Archaeology 14:9-34. 
Bangs. O. 1910. Unrecorded specimens of two rare 
Hawaiian birds. Proceedings of the Biological Society 
of Washington 23:67-69 
BankO. W. H. 1979. History of endemic Hawaiian birds 
|sic] specimens in museum collections. Cooperative 
National Park Resources Study Unit. University of 
Hawaii, Avian History Report 2:1-80. 
BanKO, W. E. 1*4X7. History of endemic Hawaiian birds. 
Population histones—species accounts. Forest birds: 
"Apapane, Akohekohe, & ‘Uha'aihawane [sic]. Co¬ 
operative National Park Resources Study Unit. Uni¬ 
versity of Hawaii at Manoa. CPSU/UH Avian History 
Report 11 a: I-248. 
Berger. A. J. 1972. Hawaiian birdlil'e. University Press of 
Hawaii, Honolulu. USA. 
BERGER, A. J. 1981, Hawaiian birdlife. Second Edition. 
University Press of Hawaii. Honolulu. USA. 
Best. H. A. 1979. Food and foraging behavior of the Snares 
Fernbird. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 6:481-488. 
Bock, W. J. 1970. Microevolutionary sequences as a 
fundamental concept in macroevolutionay models. 
Evolution 24:704-722. 
Bock. W. j. 1972. Morphology of the tongue apparatus of 
Ciridops anna (Drepanididne). Ibis 114:61-78. 
Bock. W. J 1978. Morphology of the larynx of Corvus 
brachyrhynchos (Passeriformes: Corvidae). Wilson 
Bulletin 90:553-565. 
Buck. W. J. 1979. The synthetic explanation of macroevo¬ 
lutionary change—a reductionistic approach. Pages 20- 
69 in Models and methodologies in evolutionary theory 
