028 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



ing obtained anything but a stuffed specimen from a local collection 

 formed many years ago, it is almost certaiu that the " Pacific Sickle- 

 bill" has disappeared from among the living, and that the few speci- 

 mens in the museums, perhaps less than half a dozen, are all that is 

 left of a species that ouce was common in the " Eden of the Pacific." 

 Mr. Scott Wilson is also the first one to suggest the probable cause of 

 its extinction, for he saw some of the celebrated feather wreaths, or 

 " leis," of the natives composed of yellow feathers taken from this bird, 

 and from the fact that the Hawaiian name of the bird, " Mamo" is the 

 same as that of the costly war- cloaks, he concludes that the robes in 

 olden times were chiefly wrought of the beautiful golden-yellow feath- 

 ers from its back, which are much deeper in color, as they are larger 

 and longer, than the axillary tufts of the O-o. In order to understand 

 how probable this explanation of the final extermination of the bird is, 

 we shall have to briefly describe these ornamental capes and cloaks. 

 In former times the kings, chiefs, and noble Hawaiians, whenever they 

 appeared in public on special occasions, in peace or war, donned the 

 royal flowing capes or cloaks made of gay birds' feathers fastened to 

 a groundwork of coarse netting, which seem to have had the same sig- 

 nificance and to have been as eagerly coveted and highly revered as the 

 ermine and purple in feudal Europe. Smaller ornaments, " leis," or 

 feather- wreaths were used as neck-laces by the ladies. Perhaps the 

 most magnificent of these robes was that of Kamehameha I, the great 

 conqueror who united all the islands under his scepter. Mr. Scott 

 Wilson gives the following description of it: 



The fabrication of the great yellow war-cloak of Kamehameha I had been going on 

 through the reign of eight preceding monarchs. The groundwork is of coarse net- 

 ting, to which are attached, with skill now impossible to be applied, the delicate 

 feathers, those ou the border being reverted. Its length is 4 feet, aud it has a spread 

 of 11£ feet at the bottom, the whole having the appearance of a mantle of gold.* 



As only a few feathers on each bird were used, it may be imagined 

 how many thousand birds it required to furnish the feathers of a single 

 robe, and it is a greater wonder that there were enough birds than 

 that the species of the brighter color became extinct. Small bunches 

 of these feathers were received by the kings as a poll-tax from the lower 

 classes of tbe people, but these were not enough, so the chiefs used 

 to have " a regular staff of bird-catchers who were expert in this voca- 

 tion. They made use of the sticky jnice of the bread-fruit, called in 

 Hawaiian 'pihah,' aud the tenacious gum of the fragrant 'olapa,' a com- 

 mon tree in some parts of the forests, smearing the stuff about the 

 branches of a flower covered 'ohai.'" It is asserted that the O-o (Moho 



* The cloak deposited in the U. S. National Museum by Mr. R. O. Aulick is of pre- 

 cisely the same size as this, but is a trifle over one-half composed of red feathers. It 

 was formerly the property of the powerful chief Kekuaskalami, who, on the abolition 

 of idolatry in 1819, rebelled, with the intention of restoring the ancient religion. 

 The rebellion was unsuccessful and Kekuaskalami killed. The cloak was presented 

 to Commodore J. H. Aulick by King Kamehameha in in 1841. 



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