Abstract
A REPORT that Hui Manu, the bird society of the Honolulu and Sandwich Islands, has decided to undertake a scheme for breeding and distributing many of the vanishing birds of the Hawaiian archipelago, is of interest, for these Pacific islands are perhaps the most isolated of all oceanic groups. Rothschild (“Avifauna of Hawaii and nearby Islands”, 1893–1900) records 47 species from Hawaii, 34 of which breed, and from the neighbouring islands, Laysan 40, Kawai and Nishan 41, Oahu 28, Molokai 21, Maui 26 and Lanai 18. The introduction of many birds foreign to the islands, and particularly the European house-sparrow (Passer domesticus) now one of the commonest birds of the islands, has seriously affected the native avifauna, while Wetmore (Nat, Geog. Mag., 18, 77; 1925), in a survey of the bird-life of the group, recorded considerable damage from the introduction of rats and rabbits. It was in 1909, through the interest of President Roosevelt, that the Hawaiian Bird Reservation was set up under the control of the United States Department of Agriculture. Amongst the fifty odd species recorded in the group, Heilprin states all the passeres and five of the aquatic and wading birds are peculiar.
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Birds of Hawaii. Nature 133, 289 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133289a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133289a0