212 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



their absence yet can scarcely be realised, and of 

 these our information is in most cases more 

 satisfactory. 



Our first species carries us away to the fair 

 islands of the Pacific, the home of so many rare 

 and curious birds, doomed, alas ! to speedy extirpa- 

 tion. The bird in question is the Mamo, or Pacific 

 Sickle - bill, a species confined to the Sandwich 

 Islands, where it was once very common, but 

 is now so rare that less than half a dozen 

 examples are known to exist in collections. Few 

 as these are, there can be little doubt that they 

 represent the surviving relics of the species, for all 

 recent efforts to find it in a living state have 

 proved fruitless. The extei^mination of the Mamo 

 cannot be attributed to civilised man. In this 

 case savage man has been the delinquent, destroy- 

 ing the bird for the sake of its beautiful golden- 

 yellow plumage, which was made up into war- 

 cloaks for the Hawaiian kings, and into necklaces 

 for their women. The feathers in request were 

 those from the back of the bird, and to obtain them 

 small bunches were received by the kings as a 

 poll-tax from their poorer subjects, and a regular 

 staff of bird-catchers were employed by the chiefs 

 to augment the supply. Only a few feathers from 



