Bird Notes and News 



51 



life. An area of over 300 acres on each side 

 of the buildings was apparently abandoned. 

 . . . On every side are bones bleaching in 

 the sun, showing were the poachers have 

 piled the bodies of the birds as they stripped 

 them of wings and feathers. In the old 

 guano shed were the remains of himdreds 

 and possibly thousands of wings which were 

 placed there but never cured for shipping, 

 as the marauders were interrupted in their 

 work. 



"An old cistern, back of one of the buildings 

 tells a story of cruelty that surpasses any- 

 thing else done by these heartless, san- 

 guinary pirates, not excepting the practice 

 of cutting the wings from Hving birds and 

 leaving them to die of haemorrhage. In 

 this dry cistern the Uving birds were kept 

 by hundreds to slowly starve to death. In 

 this way the fatty tissue lying next to the 

 skin was used up, and the skin was left 

 free from grease, so that it required Uttle 

 or no cleaning during preparation. 

 'I ,/' Many other revolting sights, such as 

 the remains of yoimg birds that had been 

 left to starve and birds with broken legs 

 and deformed beaks.were to be seen. Killing- 

 clubs, nets and other implements were lying 



all about. Himdreds of boxes to be used 

 in shipping the skins were packed in an old 

 building. It was very evident they intended 

 to csLTTj on their slaughter as long as the 

 birds lasted." 



Professor W. A. Bryan adds that fully 

 one-haK of the numbers of both species 

 of Albatross that were so abundant in 

 1903 had been killed. Over a large 

 part of the island, formerly thickly 

 inhabited by albatrosses, not a bird 

 remained, but heaps of the slain told 

 of the slaughter ; and though these 

 birds were the main object the hunters 

 had also kiUed anything in the bird line 

 they came across. Happily operations 

 were interrupted before any species had 

 been completely exterminated. 



This poaching, cruelty, and slaughter 

 show what the plume-hunters wiU do 

 while open markets remain for their wares 

 and women wiU deck themselves with 

 wings and quills. 



Economic Ornithology. 



The Department of Agriculture of the 

 Dominion of Canada has issued a valuable 

 bulletin on " The Large Larch Sawfly," 

 by Dr. Gordon Hewitt, the Dominion 

 Entomologist. This pest, whose depreda- 

 tions are so serious in England, has 

 destroyed from fifty to a hundred per cent, 

 of the native larches of eastern Canada 

 and the United States. In a preface, 

 the Director of the Dominion Experi- 

 mental Farm states that for various 

 reasons it is quite impracticable to 

 control the spread of the insect by 

 artificial means, and therefore investiga- 

 tions have been made concerning its 

 natural animal and bird enemies. Dr. 



Hewitt details the successful experiments 

 carried on by him at Thirlmere in 

 England ; the useful work done by Tits, 

 Chaifinches, Starlings, Jackdaws, and 

 Rooks, and the provision of Nesting- 

 Boxes for the encouragement of insecti- 

 vorous birds. In 1911, 347 boxes were 

 provided, of which 229 were occupied, 

 a percentage double that of the boxes 

 occupied in 1909, when the experiment 

 began with sixty boxes. 



In the October number of the Journal 

 of the Board of Agriculture (England) 

 the value of the Starling in feeding on 

 the destructive osier-beetle, is noted. 



