164 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



plumage of approximately 259,000 birds were thus confiscated. As 

 previously a party intent on the same errand had landed on Lysianski, 

 another island of the same group, and spent months in killing sea 

 birds and stripping off the plumage, it is probable that not far from a 

 million of our sea birds were killed by aliens to sell to European 

 milliners. The magnitude of the offense is better appreciated when 

 it is understood that many sea birds, like albatrosses and others, 

 lay only a single egg during the entire year, and as the natural 

 mortality among both old and young is very considerable, years must 

 elapse ere the greatly depleted colonies can be restored to their full 

 strength. Dame Fashion has many sins to answer for, but few of 

 greater magnitude than the wholesale slaughter of these stately 

 creatures. 



Had the raiders not been discovered, without doubt they would 

 eventually have killed every nesting bird on this and the other acces- 

 sible islands and converted these unique possessions of ours into veri- 

 table shambles. At the time of the visit of the party in the summer 

 of 1911 heaps of the bodies of the slain still lay on the ground, mute 

 witnesses of the sad fate that had overtaken these beautiful birds. 



PROTECTION ESSENTIAL TO PRESERVATION OF RESERVATION AND SPECIES. 



As the islands are part of our National possessions and have been 

 set apart as a bird reserve, the care and the protection of their avian 

 inhabitants would seem clearly to devolve upon the Federal Gov- 

 ernment. It is true that their remoteness and inaccessibility render 

 it difficult to guard them properly. An effort, however, will be made 

 lo secure from Congress sufficient funds to provide for the services 

 of a warden for Laysan and for an assistant. It is hoped also to 

 secure a small power boat of adequate size to enable trips to be made 

 between Laysan and the other islands and Honolulu. These meas- 

 ures, if supplemented by an occasional visit from one of the Gov- 

 ernment cutters during the height of the breeding season, will insure 

 the continued safety of the nesting colonies. From a variety of 

 causes sea birds are being reduced in numbers almost everywhere, 

 chiefly as the result of plumage hunting and of the growing scarcity 

 of breeding sites. Hence these island bird colonies, one of the won- 

 ders of the world, will become of increasing importance with each 

 succeeding year. They should be regarded as a National heritage, 

 and the birds be adequately protected, not only for the sake of our 

 own citizens, but for those of other countries whose people go down 

 to the sea in ships. Otherwise these birds will suffer the fate that 

 overtook those on Marcus Island, also one of our possessions, where, 

 as reported by Bryan, in six years a colony of albatrosses almost as 

 large as that of Laysan was reduced to less than a score of birds 

 through the unchecked activities of feather hunters. 



o 



