The natural presumption would be that the birds, disliking even the semblance of interference, have simply moved into adjoining tracts. Such may be the explanation here. But bearing in mind the unaccountable extinction of some Hawaiian species and of the intense habit of localiza- tion of nearly all surviving species, it is not wholly improbable that large numbers of the dwellers in such tracts have succumbed to changes so slight that hardier mainland birds would scarcely have noticed them at all, or would have readily adjusted themselves to them. For species like the liwi and the Akakani there is much hope. These nectar-loving birds are accustomed to follow the flowering of the ohias from tract to tract and from lower to higher levels, and so long as consid- erable areas of this tree remain it is probable that these beautiful and interesting birds will survive. The Ou, too, seems to be something of a wanderer, owing, no doubt, to the wide distribution of the ieie vine and its irregular time of flowering and seeding. This fine bird also may be expected long to survive. But there is no such favorable outlook for the bulk of the Hawaiian birds. Developed under conditions the most unusual and peculiar, each within its own chosen and restricted sphere, changes of any sort, and competition, however weak, are likely to find them unprepared and, in the light of their past history, are almost sure to prove disastrous. Like the Hawaiian race, they will probably disappear rapidly, leaving behind as tokens of their exis- tence a few dried skins in museums and some meager pages of life histories. A I MII.^ 01 M)i N(; SCRKKCII UW 1 N Natives o( Btoiix Park. .-w ^ork City. I'hi.t..i;raiihc-,1 liy C. William Bii-tic
