Flightless rails foraged the dry forest floor like mammals, as likely to rob an egg from a ground-nesting bird as gobble up endemic snails. The owls, which did fly, used their unusually long legs to snatch other birds from the air. There are other evolutionary theories, too. Some scientists believe that because of the steady blast of the trade winds, light, winged birds might have run a high risk of being blown off some of the small windswept islands that make up the northwest part of the archipelago. Still, some Hawaiian birds kept on flying, and maintained the physique that flight required.
Unusual island crows wandered about, as ready to munch on fruit as rob a nest or scavenge leftovers.
Natural selection reshaped the beaks of pioneer finches in much the same way Darwin's famous finches' were in the Gal pagos. Olson and James say they would probably still be around today if Polynesians had not made their landfall on the islands some 16 centuries ago. Eventually three-quarters of the versatile finches disappeared, most dramatically because Polynesian kings feathered their robes of office so lavishly. That old terminator habitat destruction, set in motion by the farming methods of Polynesian and Europeans alike, also added to the death toll. So did the introduction of non-native species that competed for resources with, and sometimes preyed on, indigenous birds.