BUREAU OF BIOLOGICAL. SURVEY. 445 



INTRODUCTION OF TROPICAL AMERICAN GAME BIRDS. 



For some j^ears the Biological Survey lias been interested in hav- 

 ing experiments made for the introduction and acclimatization of 

 the ocellated turkey, a wonderfully beautiful game bird found from 

 Yucatan to Honduras, and the curassow and possibly other game 

 birds of the same region. In the spring of 1923, a cooperator of 

 the bureau provided the funds needed to send a naturalist to the 

 Lake Peten region of Guatemala to secure a stock of living birds 

 for this experiment, the birds when received to be placed on islands 

 off the coast of Georgia. The leader of the expedition reports that 

 a considerable number of young ocellated turkeys and other birds 

 are being raised for this experiment by Indians under his super- 

 vision. 



INVESTIGATION OF INTRODUCED QUAIL. 



Within the past eight years large numbers of quail, or bob- 

 whites, have been introduced into Pennsylvania and Maryland from 

 northern Mexico in an attempt to replenish the depleted covers. 

 These birds belong to a form which differs from the native birds in 

 smaller size and paler or grayer coloration. It is a matter of much 

 interest to ascertain to what extent the introduced birds have in- 

 creased and whether they interbreed with the native stock. To ob- 

 tain these data a representative of the bureau, in cooperation with 

 members of the State game commissions, during the hunting season 

 visited the sections of those States affected by the introductions 

 and collected specimens from as many coveys as possible. The re- 

 sults showed that interbreeding between the imported and the na- 

 tive stock had taken place in a number of instances, while a few 

 birds which showed only the characters of the imported birds may 

 have been either members of the original importations or their 

 descendants. This investigation will be continued, as the results will 

 have a practical bearing as well as a scientific value. 



HAWAIIAN ISLAND EXPEDITION. 



Some years ago a German living on Laysan Island, a celebrated 

 breeding place of enormous numbers of albatrosses and other notable 

 sea fowl, and within the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation, intro- 

 duced the European rabbit. The multiplication of these animals on 

 this wonderful island made it evident that they must be exterminated 

 if the vegetation and some of the species of birds peculiar to the 

 island were to be saved. In the spring of 1923, through the coop- 

 eration of the Navy Department, a vessel of 1,000 tons capacity was 

 detailed for four months to provide facilities for a careful scientific 

 reconnaissance under the direction of a representative of the Biologi- 

 cal Survey of all of the islands in the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reser- 

 vation and others adjacent thereto, including Wake and Jolmston 

 Islands. Through the active cooperation of the Bishop Museum, of 

 Honolulu, the scientific personnel of the expedition included a botan- 

 ist, an entomologist, an anthropologist, a geologist, and other scien- 

 tists. The present survey of these islands is one of the most com- 

 plete ever undertaken in the Pacific. 



