EXPEDITION TO LAYSAN ISLAND IN 1911. 27 



This wholesale killing has had an appalling effect on the colony. 

 No one can estimate the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, 

 of birds that have been willfully sacrificed on Laysan to the whim 

 of fashion and the lust for gain. It is conservative to say that fully 

 one-half the number of birds of both species of albatross that were 

 so abundant everywhere in 1903 have been killed. The colonies that 

 remain are in a sadly decimated condition. Often a colony of a 

 dozen or more birds will not have a single young. Over a large part 

 of the island, in some sections a hundred acres in a place, that 10 

 years ago was thickly inhabited by albatrosses, not a single bird 

 remains, while heaps of the slain lie as mute testimony of the awful 

 slaughter of these beautiful, harmless, and without doubt beneficial 

 inhabitants of the high seas. 



While the main activity of the plume hunters was directed against 

 the albatrosses, they were by no means averse to killing anything in 

 the bird line that came in their way. As a consequence large num- 

 bers of all the different species of birds that occur on the island were 

 killed. Among the species slaughtered may be mentioned black- 

 footed albatross, Laysan albatross, sooty tern, gray-backed tern, 

 noddy tern, Hawaiian tern, white tern, Bonin Island petrel, wedge- 

 tailed shearwater, Christmas Island shearwater, red-tailed tropic bird, 

 blue-faced booby, red-footed booby, man-o'-war bird, bristle-thighed 

 curlew, and without doubt many of the few species of the smaller 

 birds peculiar to Laysan as well as those that visit it as migrants. 



Fortunately, serious as were the depredations of the poachers, 

 their operations were interrupted before any of the species had been 

 completely exterminated. So far as the birds that secure their food 

 from the sea are concerned, it is reasonable to suppose they will 

 increase in number, and that nature will in time restore the island to 

 its former populous condition if no further slaughter is permitted. 

 Owing to the indiscriminate method of the killing, usually only one 

 or the other of mated pairs was sacrified. The unmated birds that 

 survive are slow in selecting another mate. As but a single egg is 

 laid by the majority of these birds, it will possibly take 10 years for 

 the sea birds of the colony to regain their former numerical strength. 



With the land birds an entirely different condition exists. All the 

 small species peculiar to the island, except possibly the Laysan teal, 

 depend entirely upon the vegetation on the island for their food 

 supply. The uninterrupted and astonishing increase in the numbers 

 of rabbits and guinea pigs can have but one result if allowed to 

 continue unchecked. They will surely eat or kill off all of the grass 

 and shrubs. Doubtless the insects that feed on the plants and in 

 turn are fed upon by the birds will be so reduced as to bring about 

 starvation among the small birds. 



