12 EXPEDITION TO LAYS AN ISLAND IN 1911. 



About 1 1 o'clock of the seventh day the island was sighted. We ex- 

 pected to see clouds of birds about it, but in this we were disappointed. 

 It was too early for terns to arrive in large numbers. We reached 

 the shore about 3 o'clock and spent the remainder of the day in land- 

 ing our outfit and repairing the old building for our use. (PL I.) By 

 6 o'clock everything was beached and the Thetis sailed to Midway 

 Island, coming back a week later for our mail and to say farewell until 

 the 5th of June, when she returned for our party. 



Our first impression of Laysan was that the poachers had stripped 

 the place of bird life. An area of over 300 acres on each side of the 

 buildings was apparently abandoned. Only the shearwaters moan- 

 ing in their burrows, the little wingless rail skulking from one grass 

 tussock to another, and the saucy finch remained. It is an excellent 

 example of what Prof. Nutting calls the survival of the inconspicuous. 



Here on every side are bones bleaching in the sun, showing where 

 the poachers have piled the bodies of the birds as they stripped them 

 of wings and feathers. In the old open guano shed (PL II) were 

 seen the remains of hundreds 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 anything else done by these heartless, sanguinary 

 pirates, not excepting the practice of cutting the wings from living 

 birds and leaving them to die of hemorrhage. In this dry cistern 

 the living 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 quite free from grease, so that it required little or no 

 cleaning during preparation. 



Many other revolting sights, such as the remains of young 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 

 used by these marauders were lying all about. Hundreds of boxes 

 to be used in shipping the bird skins were packed in an old building. 

 It was very evident they intended to carry on their slaughter as long 

 as the birds lasted. 



Not only did they kill and skin the larger species \)ut they caught 

 and caged the finch, honey eater, and miller bird. Cages and material 

 for making them were found. 



Half an hour's walk, however, will take one to an entirely different 

 scene. The north, east, and south parts of the island have not been 

 disturbed to any extent by the poachers, they having confined their 

 work largely to the area nearer the buildings and along the car track 

 formerly used by the guano company. 



We found some species on the east side even more abundant than 

 reported by Prof. Nutting in 1902. It is interesting to note the 



