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 borough 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. 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, as is known, 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. R. 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 Russia; 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.1 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 that time fallen under the sway of the conquering Kamehameha I., whose son and successor, 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 capital of the islands, and accordingly H.M.S. Blonde, commanded by George Anson seventh Lord Byron (first cousin and successor to the poet), was commissioned to convey the dismal freight. The duty was performed, and the islands again were ceded to the British Crown, but again declined. On board the Blonde sailed as chaplain Mr. Rowland Bloxam, together with his brother Andrew, who was somewhat of a naturalist, and it was intended that the published account of her voyage should contain a proper appendix on the natural history of the islands. An "Appendix' there indeed is, but one utterly unworthy of its reputed author, for the book was edited by a lady (as I have been informed) who had nothing but a few of his notes to guide her, and though assisted, as it is stated, by "the gentlemen connected with that department in the British Museum," is a disgrace to all concerned, since, so far from advancing the knowledge of the subject, it introduced so much confusion as to mislead many subsequent writers. Some years later another great opportunity was missed, and this time by the American traveller Townsend, who, after crossing the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, sailed, in company with Nuttall, the well-known naturalist, for the Sandwich Islands, where they arrived in January 1836, and stayed nearly

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

I have reason to believe that Mr. Bloxam's original notes are still in existence, though hitherto they have not been accessible to me. It is possible that they would remove uncertainty on several points.

three months, visiting Oahu and Kauai. Returning at the end of the year, Townsend found the Prussian naturalist Deppe at Honolulu, and with him passed some time in the pursuit of natural history, visiting most of the windward islands before he left in March 1837. Among the specimens obtained by Deppe for the Berlin Museum were some of two species for which Lichtenstein rightly established a new genus-the singular form Hemignathus--and, as it has since proved, both these species were new, though he had, not unnaturally, identified one of them with a species described by Latham. Of Townsend's collection, a considerable part was given to the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, where it still remains; but he sent several specimens to Audubon, at that time, I believe, in Edinburgh, and he parted with them to Carfrae, a dealer there, who sold them to the late Sir William Jardine, at the dispersal of whose collection I was so fortunate as to secure them--some of them bearing Townsend's labelfor the Museum of this University. If Townsend had but published a list of his captures, he would indeed have rendered a very good service; but of course the value of island-forms, to say nothing of the fact that many of them were threatened with extirpation by colonization and civilization, had not then been appreciated, if even entertained, by naturalists. In the year of Townsend's departure, the French frigate Vénus, in the course of her troublous career under Du Petit-Thouars, arrived in the Sandwich Islands, with two naturalists, Léclancher and Néboux, on board; and some years later the atlas of plates illustrating the zoology of her voyage appeared; but the text was deferred for a long while, and, indeed, was not completed till 1856. Herein was figured and described, though not for the first time, a third species of the curious Hemignathus. In the meanwhile the celebrated expedition of Commodore Wilkes took place, and he, with some of his ships, wintered there. In the course of their six months' stay, the naturalists attached, Pickering and Peale, seem to have made large collections; but nearly all was lost in the shipwreck of the Peacock, one of the ships of the squadron. By 1848, Peale had completed his report on the specimens of Mammals and Birds collected, and it was printed off. A few copies only had been distributed, when the rest were destroyed by fire. It was by no means a bad performance; and I cannot understand why the late Mr. Cassin made so many changes in it when he, ten years later, brought out a new edition of it. Some of them (I speak only of those relating to the Sandwich Island fauna) were certainly not improvements. ever, a distinctly forward step was made by the PealeCassin labours, and since few can obtain access to the original work, I may mention that Dr. Hartlaub considerately published an abstract of it, just as two years later he did of the French "Voyage au Pôle Sud," wherein, having sorted out the different species observed by various voyagers on the several Pacific groups, he gave a useful list of those found on each, and thus he assigned to the Sandwich Isles thirty species of birds, marking two of them as doubtful. One of them is now known to be rightly included, but the other must be struck out, as well as, for one reason or another, four more-leaving a total of twenty-five, only sixteen of which are Land-birds and only fourteen Passeres.

How

Hitherto, no list of the birds of the Sandwich Isles had been published, so that Dr. Hartlaub's met a great want, though it had, of course, been possible, since 1814, for anyone to pick out for himself the species assigned to that group from the general list compiled by Tiedemann

1 In mentioning these facts, I desire to record my deep gratitude to the authorities of both these Museums-Berlin and Philadelphia-for their obliging readiness in allowing me to have these valuable specimens, one of them unique, for examination. Archiv für Naturgeschichte, 1852, Hef. i. pp. 93-138. 3 Journal für Ornithologie, 1854, pp. 160-171.

All the species above-named are peculiar to the group, i.e. not found elsewhere. A* indicates that the species inhabits the island whose name heads the column. At shows that the species is believed to be extinct.

extinct. All the other forms which had been accounted Meliphagine, present a peculiar structure of tongue, forbidding that alliance, or any affinity to the Prionopida, Diceida, or Nectariniida, but revealing a distinct relationship to the Carcbida-now known as a Family characteristic of the Neotropical Region! Hereby a beam of light is thrown on the origin and derivation of the ornithic population of the Sandwich Islands. The

distinct inference is that the first stock of their existing avifauna was received from America, in days when the range of the Carebida extended further to the northward than it does at present, and that certain cognates or ancestors of the present Carebida colonized the islands, there differentiating into the modern Drepanidida. The importance of this inference on views which are held as to the Geographical Distribution of Birds in North America is a subject into which there is no need here to enter, for that would be a subject foreign to my present remarks; but I doubt not it will receive due attention from American ornithologists, whom it most nearly concerns. That these colonists from what I would venture to term a "Columbian" fauna-since it cannot be literally called a Neotropical one, and is certainly not "Nearctic "—were the earliest settlers which have left descendants one can hardly doubt, for they have existed in the Sandwich Islands long enough to undergo a great amount of change. Subsequently there has been á small infusion of blood from the Australian Region." I say subsequently, because Dr. Gadow has shown that this immigration has undergone comparatively little modification. We have (or had) the two Meliphagine genera, Acrulocercus and Chatoptila-the latter, indeed, beyond anatomical examination, but showing no very great external deviation from well-known Australian types; while the former undoubtedly retains the normal Meliphagine tongue. To these may be added Chasiempis, a wellmarked genus; but, without question, very nearly allied to the genus Rhipidura, so widely spread over the Australian Region, and found also in New Zealand. Thus three genera constitute, so far as I am able to see, the Australian" element in the avifauna of the Sandwich Islands and what are they among so many others? More recently than this Australian infusion, has supervened an influx of Holarctic types, and especially of the Fringillida. Whether these have arrived from America or Asia, I do not pretend to say; but the long chain of islets running to the westward-one of which produces a remarkable form (Telespiza cantans), the knowledge of which we also owe to Mr. Wilson (Ibis, 1890, pp. 339-341, Plate ix.) suggests the possibility of an Asiatic origin, a possibility confirmed by the consideration that his fine Chloridops kona may be the magnified descendant of the long-known Chloris kawarahiba, which has already an enterprising relative, C. kittlitzi (Ibis, 1890, p. 101), established in the Bonin Islands. Still later must have been the appearance on the scene of members of the genera Corvus and Buteo, both of which are, so far as is yet known, confined to Hawaii, the most eastern of the islands, and therefore suggest an emigration from the Nearctic These have been settled long enough to assume recognizable specific characters; but an apparently more modern colonist exists in Asio accipitrinus, the common Short-eared Owl of Asia, Europe, and North America, which extends its range over many islands in the Pacific Ocean, so far at least as the Galapagos, and has found a permanent home in the Sandwich Isles, breeding there, as it would seem, regularly-as it once did in England, and would again, if permitted by the gamekeepers. More than this, there is an indication that the tendency to colonization from the Holarctic region still continues. Within an hour or two of his leaving the islands, there was sent to Mr. Wilson a freshly-killed example of Circus hudsonius-the American Hen-Harrier a species which he had already ascertained to have before occurred in the group; but, not being recognized by Judge Dole, it had been endowed with a new name, and figures in his second list as Accipiter hawaii. The existence in considerable numbers of a Californian species of Carpodacus is thought, and no doubt rightly, by Mr. Wilson to be

area.

In connexion herewith may be noticed the absence of Parrots, Kingfishers, and Doves-all Families that are very characteristic of an "Australian' Fauna.

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due to human agency, and accordingly I do not attach any importance to the fact; but there is one very puzzling species, of which only a few specimens seem to have been preserved, that needs particular attention. This was described by Judge Dole under the name of “Fringilla anna," but, of course, is no true Fringilla. Mr. Wilson brought home but a single specimen, which he owed to the kindness of the Hon. C. R. Bishop, it having been formerly in the Mills Collection; and, I believe, will establish for it a new genus, Ciridops—so named because its bright coloration recalls the wellknown Emberiza ciris of Linnæus, the Painted Bunting of authors, or Nonpareil" of bird-dealers. It is supposed to be now extinct, but it was a truly native species; it probably belongs to the fauna which I have above called "Columbian" (for want of a better name); but I cannot suppose it to have been so early a settler as the Drepanidide, since it has changed so little. On the genus Chasiempis I would offer only one remark, and that is a word of caution to those who would, on the evidence of from a couple to half-a-dozen of specimens, or perhaps even on the evidence of a badly-coloured plate, attempt to break it up into definable "species." There remains of land-birds the genus Phæornis, which earlier systematists were inclined to put among the Flycatchers (Muscicapidae). The examples in spirit, placed by Mr. Wilson at Dr. Gadow's disposal, have enabled the latter to set aside that view, and to show that, of all the Families to which this genus has been supposed to be allied, "it differs least from the Turdida," and he would regard it "as a generalized or rather primitive Thrush."1

Of the water-birds I do not now propose to speak. Though possessing very many points of special interest to the ornithologist, so far as I understand them they throw no particular light on the general questions I have attempted to consider; and I would conclude this sketch of the Ornithology of the Sandwich Isles by referring to the unhappy fate of one of the most beautiful of their birds-the Mamo," as I am told it was latterly called Drepanis pacifica, one of the rarest species in collections, and apparently wholly extinct. Until Mr. Wilson brought the specimen which he has kindly given to this University, there seems not to have been one in the British Islands since the dispersal of the Leverian Museum, when two were bought by the Austrian agent, and are now at Vienna. How many other specimens may exist in the world I do not know, but the number can hardly exceed half-a-dozen. The bird was destroyed for the sake of its rich yellow feathers, used in former days to decorate the state robes of the chiefs, and according to all accounts a glorious sight one of those robes when in all its freshness must have been. As the species became scarce, recourse was had to the yellow tufts of Acrulocercus nobilis, which in depth of colour are very inferior; and when the Drepanis had ceased to exist, the name "O-o," which it seems to have borne in Cook's days, was transferred to the surviving species, according to a practice of which I have observed several instances in other nations. The general similarity of coloration in Acrulocercus and Drepanis is, indeed, obvious, and Dr. Gadow is inclined to consider the latter to have been the imitating form. If so, its mimicry has proved its destruction; but it clearly could not have foreseen that fashion should ordain its acquired yellow and black feathers to become desirable commodities among the human race, and it would be wel to suspend judgment on this point. It had most likely a very limited range, which would, of course, hasten its end; and its two most conspicuous relatives, the scarlet Vestiaria coccinea, and the crimson Himatione sanguinea, though in equal request for their gaudy plumage, still exist, inhabiting (as will be seen by the table) all the islands that have been examined. How to account for

A minute comparison with the New-Zealand Turnagra, if that be still in the land of the living, would be desirable.

the disappearance of Chatoptila angustipluma is beyond my power. It has no attractive colouring, and yet is declared to be extinct. The specimen given to us by Mr. Wilson is, I believe, the only one ever brought to Europe, and there seems to be but one (the type) in any American Museum. In mentioning the former I must acknowledge gratefully the generosity of Mr. Wilson, who promised a complete set of his bird-skins to the Museum of his old University on the completion of his work, a promise that he will doubtless perform.

Finally, I would point out that the conclusions established by Dr. Gadow's researches seem to coincide very much with those arrived at by Dr. David Sharp and Mr. Blackburn from their investigation of a small collection of Hawaiian Coleoptera (Trans. Roy. Dublin Society, series 2, vol. iii. Part 6). The entomological captures of Mr. Perkins are therefore awaited with considerable interest; and still more valuable, perhaps, may be his conchological collections, for it seems doubtful at present whether the Mollusks of the Sandwich Isles can be brought into line with their Birds and their Beetles. There is every chance of this question, among many others of importance, being solved if Mr. Perkins is enabled to prolong his stay for sufficient time; but that depends upon the financial support he may receive at home from the two learned bodies which I have mentioned, and from the Hawaiian Government and influential residents in the Islands. ALFRED NEWTON.

Cambridge, 13 February, 1892.

PROF. BUNSEN AND THE CHEMICAL

SOCIETY.

IT T was announced at the last meeting of the Chemical Society that it was proposed to present the following address to Prof. Bunsen, who has now been fifty years a Foreign Member of the Society; and the wish was expressed that, among those who sign it, all who have been his pupils should, as far as possible, be included. Fellows of the Society who have been pupils of Prof. Bunsen are requested to communicate with the Senior Secretary before March 19, in order that they may receive a form for signature.

To Privy Councillor Prof. Bunsen, Fellow of the Royal Society.

YOUR EXCELLENCY, Fifty years have elapsed since the Chemical Society of London honoured itself by electing you one of its Foreign Members. Your name, and that of your illustrious fellow-countryman Liebig, are, in fact, first on a list which includes the most distinguished cultivators of chemical science in every civilized country of the world.

Our Society remembers with gratitude that you enriched the first volume of its Transactions by communicating to it the results of your ever-memorable investigation of cacodyl and its compounds. That you should have sent to us, in the first and most critical year of our existence, a memoir which the chemical world will ever regard as one of the classics of our science, is a significant proof of the beneficent interest with which you regarded our efforts to foster the growth of chemical learning in this country.

Your masterly investigations, in collaboration with our Fellow, Sir Lyon Playfair, on the gases evolved from iron furnaces, made by methods which you were the first to bring to perfection, greatly extended our knowledge of the theory of the smelting of iron. By the permanent benefit thus conferred on one of the most important of our industries, you have largely augmented our national wealth.

The half-century during which you have been associated with our Society has been fruitful in great dis

coveries and important inventions. It has witnessed the birth of new elements, the creation of new analytical methods, and an extraordinary development in the instrumental resources of our laboratories. Chemists will

never forget that it is to your unwearied assiduity and single-minded devotion that science owes some of the most momentous of these discoveries, and some of the most valuable of these inventions. Your investigations will ever be regarded as models of the highest type of scientific research, and the memoirs in which you have embodied them shed an imperishable lustre on our literature. Your methods of analysis are among the most common of our manipulative operations, and the very furniture and instruments of our laboratories are an ever-present testimony to the obligations under which experimental chemistry will always remain to you.

Many of our members are proud to be numbered among your pupils, and those among them who have become teachers, have, we trust, caught and transmitted something, not only of the method, but also of the spirit, in which they themselves were taught. They have an abiding memory of your kindliness, of your constant and unselfish devotion to their interests, and of the generous sympathy and ready help which you extended to their efforts to enlarge the boundaries of our science.

We, the undersigned Fellows of the Chemical Society of London, now beg to offer you our heartfelt felicitations on the occasion of your Jubilee as a member of our body. It is our fervent hope that you may be able, for many years to come, to enjoy in health and happiness the leisure and repose which you have so justly and so honourably earned.

NOTES.

THE Course taken by the Government with regard to a Teaching University for London has met with general approval. The proposed Charter, if it had been accepted, would have done almost irreparable injury to the cause of higher education in the capital. Now we have got rid of it, and the way is clear for new and more carefully considered schemes. The Royal Commission to which the question is to be referred will be free, if it chooses, to examine the question whether, after all, the institution needed by London might not be most readily and most effectually obtained by the development of the existing University. It may be hoped that on this and all other aspects of the question full evidence will be taken. What is wanted is that any recommendations which may be made by the Commission shall be based on extensive and accurate information as to the organization and the proper functions of Universities. On this subject some very crude notions are still current in England.

All

THE sixth annnal Photographic Conference in connection with the Camera Club will be held in the theatre of the Society of Arts, on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 22 and 23, under the presidency of Captain W. de W. Abney, F.R.S. photographers are invited to take part in the Conference. THE Botanical Society of France will hold an extraordinary meeting at Biskra, Algeria, during the first half of April.

A ROYAL COMMISSION has been appointed to consider the question of the water supply of London. Its task will be to inquire whether the present sources of supply are adequate in quantity and quality, and, if inadequate, whether such supply as may be required can be obtained within the watersheds of the Thames and the Lea, or must be obtained elsewhere. Among the members of the Commission are Sir Archibald Geikie and Prof. James Dewar.

A NUMBER of gentlemen, representing institutions interested in science-teaching, recently applied to the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education for permission to wait upon him with reference to the changes indicated in the circular issued by the Department of Science and Art, dated November 12, 1891. In answer to a question put by Mr. Schwann, Sir W. Hart Dyke stated in the House of Commons, on Tuesday evening, that he had informed the deputation that he did not think any good purpose would be served by his receiving them. He was, however, willing to reconsider the matter. Sir William expressed his belief that the changes announced in the circular would greatly stimulate more advanced scientific instruction. The minute had been well received in the better schools.

A NEW "Jahrbuch der Chemie" is to be issued by the German publisher, H. Bechhold, Frankfort. It will be edited by Prof. R. Meyer, who has secured the co-operation of many eminent men of science. The intention is that the progress of pure and applied chemistry shall be recorded every year in a connected series of articles.

DR. M. C. COOKE announces that, with the next number of Grevillea, his connection with it as editor and proprietor will come to a close, and it will rest with others whether the journal is to be continued. Grevillea is "A Quarterly Record of Cryptogamic Botany and its Literature." With the next number it will have completed its twentieth volume.

stitution, on Thursday, March 24, a course of three lectures on DR. B. ARTHUR WHITELEGGE will begin at the Royal Inepidemic waves. In the first lecture he will deal with cyclic waves; in the second (March 31), with superadded waves; in the third (April 7), with pandemic waves.

THE fifth ordinary meeting of the Egypt Exploration Fund was held last Friday, Sir John Fowler presiding. The balancesheet was one of the most satisfactory ever presented to the members. The Fund, it was pointed out, was now used in two classes of operations-surveying and excavating; and both "seemed likely to be very successful." In the course of a brief discussion on the report, reference was made to the generous contributions which had been handed to the Fund from America, in comparison with those received from England."

THE half-yearly general meeting of the Scottish Meteorological Society was held at Edinburgh on Monday, March 7. The following was the business :-(1) Report from the Council of the Society; (2) changes in the temperature of Scotland since 1764, by Dr. Buchan; (3) on the squall of February 1, 1892, by R. C. Mossman; (4) sunshine values at the Ben Nevis Observatory, by R. C. Mos nan.

MR. E. J. STONE, F.R.S, and Mr. A. G. Vernon Harcont, F.R.S., have been elected members of the Athenæum Club, under the rule which provides for "the annual introduction of a certain number of persons of distinguished eminence in science, literature, or the arts, or for public services."

THE fifteenth Convention of the National Electric Light Association, lately held at Buffalo, U.S., seems to have been unusually successful. This is attributed by the American journal Electricity to the fact that at previous meetings members attended "not for business but for pleasure." The counterattractions were so varied and fascinating that it seems to have been difficult to obtain a creditable attendance on the reading of the papers and the transaction of business." "The plan of doing away with these outside attractions," says Electricity, was therefore an experiment, but so successful did it prove in this instance, that this last Convention will go down in history as 'the business Convention,' unless the increased success of succeeding meetings shall make it necessary to give this one the more specific title of the first business Convention.'"

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