The Whitney South Sea Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History visited Micronesia from October, 1930, to December, 1931, with William F. Coultas as collector. Although experiencing some difficulty and being restricted somewhat in his travels by the Japanese officials, he managed to obtain collections at Ponapé (October 26, 1930, to January 1, 1931), Kusaie (January 15 to June 11, 1931), Guam (June 24 to August 30, 1931), Saipan and Tinian (September 1 to 26, 1931), and Palau (October 2 to December, 1931). Many of the species which he obtained are represented by large series of fine skins. Only part of his collections have been reported on by Mayr and his associates.

Other than the work of Coultas and that of the Japanese, there was little ornithological work done in the period between the two world wars, probably, at least in part, because of the "iron curtain," which Japan had thrown about her mandate. Bryan (1936) did visit Guam in the middle 1930's and published an account of the birds in the newspaper, Guam Recorder.

When the Micronesian islands were taken by the American forces in 1944, personnel attached to various units made observations on the bird life. The first reports, published or unpublished, were from the Marshalls, which were taken at the beginning of the campaign. Gleise, Genelly, Wallace, and others made contributions. In the Marianas considerably more observing and collecting were done by service personnel including Marshall, Stott, Borror, Strophlet, Buss, Watson, Arvey, Downs, and others. Marshall (1949) obtained also a collection of birds in the Palaus in 1945. The Laboratory of Mammalogy, United States Naval Medical Research No. 2, to which I was attached, collected at Guam (January to October, 1945), at Rota (October 17 to November 2, 1945), at Ulithi (August 11 to 23, 1945), at Palau (August 24 to September 24, 1945), and at Truk (November 24 to December 18, 1945). Following the end of the war, Harvey I. Fisher visited Micronesia and obtained a collection of birds at Yap, which is to be reported on in the near future. Larry P. Richards obtained 33 birds at Ponapé and 4 at Truk in the period from August 28, 1947, to February 10, 1948.

Descriptions of birds in Micronesia began with the naming of Halcyon c. cinnamomina in 1821; the most recent description is that of Rhipidura rufifrons mariae in 1946. In all, 131 descriptions have designated type localities in Micronesia. [Table 1] lists the dates (on the basis of ten-year intervals) when names of birds (synonyms or otherwise) were proposed. In the period from 1821 to 1860, twenty-five birds were made known to science by the earliest workers, including Kittlitz, Lesson, Bonaparte, and Pelzeln. In the period from 1861 to 1880, thirty-four birds were newly named, mostly by Hartlaub and Finsch, from the collections which the Godeffroy Museum obtained through the efforts of Kubary, Tetens, Peters, and Heinsohn. Nineteen original descriptions were published from 1881 to 1900, principally by Oustalet and Hartert, who studied the material of Marche and Owston, respectively. From 1901 to 1910, only four birds were described, but from 1911 to 1940, forty-seven descriptions were published, mostly by the Japanese following World War I. From 1931 to 1940, the number of known birds was increased by the efforts of Mayr, who studied the material of the Whitney South Sea Expedition. From 1941 to date only two original descriptions have appeared—only one was postwar. Except for possible undescribed subspecies in the northern Marianas, I think that the heyday of the taxonomist in ornithology in Micronesia is over. The field of avian ecology in Micronesia has barely been scratched.

Table 1. Compilation of the Dates (on the Basis of Ten-year Intervals) When Original Descriptions of Birds of Micronesia Appeared.

Table 1. Compilation of the Dates (on the Basis of Ten-year Intervals) When Original Descriptions of Birds of Micronesia Appeared.

YearsNo. of
descriptions		YearsNo. of
descriptions
1821-18308 1881-18909
1831-18408 1891-190010
1841-18504 1901-19104
1851-18605 1911-192010
1861-187011 1921-193015
1871-188023 1931-194022
1941-19492

[CHECK-LIST OF THE BIRDS OF MICRONESIA]

The 206 kinds of birds of 150 full species known to occur in Micronesia belong to 91 genera of 37 families of 13 orders. In the following list, nonresident birds are marked with an *; birds introduced by man are marked with a [+].