BIRDS OF THE GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO. By Robert Ridgway, Curator of the Department of Birds. Introduction. — While the present publication is intended to embody practically all tliat is kuowu of the avifauna of the Galapagos Archi-pelago, it does not claim to be exhaustive, for a great deal has yet to be learned before anything like a complete exposition of the subject is jjossible. Although our knowledge of the bird life of this interesting island grouj) has been vastly increased since the publication of Dar-win's discoveries there, chiefly through the large collections made by Dr. Habel in 18G8, the naturalists of the Albatross in 1888 and 1891, and Messrs. Baur and Adams in 1891, the information which has accu-mulated is still too fragmentary to warrant any serious attempt to solve the problems to which Mr. Darwin first called attention. Theories as to the origin of the Galapagoan ftiuna and related prob-lems will therefore be briefly touched in the following pages, the prin-cipal object of the work being to collate the knowledge thus far secured and thereby facilitate future investigation in the field whose natural products afforded the basis of Darwin's deductions concerning " the complicated problems involved in the doctrine of the derivative origin of species, . . . the importance of which in their bearing upon the study of natural science has never been equaled."' But for the unfortunate loss in transit of a box containing a large number of specimens collected by Messrs. Baur and Adams on South Albemarle, Charles, Hood, and Barrington islands,^ we should know much more concerning the fauna of those islands from which such scant material has been examined by naturalists. Not a single island of the group can be said to have been exhaust-ively explored,^ and few of the species are known in all their various iSalvin, Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., IX, Pt. ix, 1876, pp. 461-462. ^Tliis box, which was lost or stolen at Guayaquil, contained specimens of land birds from these least explored islands of the group, among them being more than forty species from the southern part of Albemarle Island, the fauna of which is almost unknown. Many novelties may be expected to occur in the elevated interior portions of the islands, where " clouds usually hang over the higher mountains, where the moisture is fur greater than on the seashore, and consequently the vegetation is far more luxuriant" (Salvin). These verdurous mountain districts, being less readily acces-sible than the arid lowlands, are doubtless but very imperfectly explored. Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XIX-No. 1116. 459
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