Frohawk

Endangered Species: Frohawk's Hawaiian birds

In its isolation, Hawai`i developed such unusual bird life that by the late 1800s it was a collectors' paradise, particularly for Lord Walter Rothschild, a member of the famous British financial family, who was more engrossed with natural history than with banking. Rothschild and the scientific community were concerned about deforestation in the Sandwich Islands. By 1840 almost of the sandalwood forests had been cut and sold to China and sugar plantations were encroaching into remaining forests. As trees were cleared, cover for nesting birds was destroyed, allowing dogs, cats, rats and pigs to eat bird eggs and fledglings. Even the introduction of mosquitoes from a passing ship decimated bird populations as avian malaria spread across the islands.

Native bird populations were so reduced that British scientists worried that many species might be wiped out before they were documented or even discovered. Rothschild and several scientific societies bankrolled expeditions to Hawai`i, producing reports in such ornithological journals as "Ibis" and Rothschild's own book, "The Birds of Laysan," which not only covered the uninhabited northwestern islands in the Hawaiian chain, but birds of the populated areas as well. The next important book was "Aves Hawaiiensis", the Birds of the Sandwich Islands. Both volumes display the work of illustrator Fredrick William Frohawk, who worked as a zoological artist for The Field in Britain from 1881, when he was only 20, to 1946, when he died. Incredibly, Frohawk's created life-like renditions throug his understanding of bird biology and form, though he painted from skins and sketches.

Eighty of Frohawk's original watercolors are hanging at Tring, Lord Rothschild's estate outside of London, which has been turned into the British Zoological Society's natural history museum.

While Aves Hawaiiensis is long out of print, the 71 plates, 64 of them hand-colored lithographs, were reprinted in 1989, each of them covering a full page in a large-format book called "Frohawk's Birds of Hawai`i." Prints from this volume, with their interesting descriptions of each bird species, is also out of print and is becoming a collector's item, available at collectables and used book shops in Hawai`i. For more information, contact the Korner Loft Kohala (808) 732-4149) or Maureen Hughes in Kailua-Kona (808) 329-6331.