Choiseul Island Santa Isabel Island as the Ortega channel after the commander of the expedition. Choiseul islanders suffered attacks from blackbirding in the nineteenth century (the often brutal recruitment or kidnapping of labourers for the sugar plantations in Queensland and Fiji). In April 1885 a German Protectorate was declared over the North Solomon Islands, including Choiseul. In 1900, under the terms of Treaty of Berlin (14 November 1899), Germany transferred the North Solomon Islands (except for Bougainville and its surrounding islands) to the British Solomon Islands Protectorate in exchange for the British giving up all claims to Samoa. Missionaries settled on Choiseul
Malaita dwarf kingfisher to species status. At the same time the name of the variable dwarf kingfisher was changed to the Moluccan dwarf kingfisher. Malaita dwarf kingfisher The Malaita dwarf kingfisher ("Ceyx malaitae"), is a species of bird in the family Alcedinidae that is endemic to Malaita Island. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. This species was formerly considered as one of the 15 recognised subspecies of what was then known as the variable dwarf kingfisher ("Ceyx lepidus" or "Alcedo lepidus"). A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2013 found that most of the insular subspecies had substantially diverged from