No. 4.] REPORT OF STATE ORNITHOLOGIST. 209 



In the lake district of southern Oregon from 1900 to 1908 

 there were stationed during each season on the lakes from 20 

 to 30 camps of killers and skinners engaged in the slaughter 

 of grebes. Wagons were driven to the camps regularly about 

 three times each week to collect the skins. This continued 

 until only a few scattered birds were left, when in 1908 the 

 government set aside the Klamath lakes for bird reserva- 

 tions. 



Some years ago, when the rage for humming birds was at 

 its height, one London dealer received from the West Indies 

 400,000 skins in one year. This wholesale destruction has 

 swept certain species out of existence and brought others near 

 the vanishing point. Now the birds of paradise are being 

 exterminated for the millinery trade. The beautiful long- 

 plumed species, native to the Island of Jobi, formerly was 

 numerous, but in 1906 only 70 skins were sent out from the 

 island, although all the natives were hunting for them. The 

 gorgeous red bird of paradise of the Island of Waigiou has 

 become very rare and probably soon will be extinct. Some 

 years previous to 1907 two Chinese traders in Humboldt 

 Bay were exporting, every three months, about 12,000 bird 

 skins, mainly those of the lesser bird of paradise. Every 

 year every full-plumaged male of the great bird of paradise, 

 which is found only in the Ayru Islands, is killed, and this 

 species is being rapidly exterminated. The blue bird of 

 paradise has become so scarce that 20 hunters were able to 

 find only three specimens in a search of three weeks' dura- 

 tion over a large portion of its limited habitat. The crowned 

 pigeon of New Guinea, the lyre bird and the regent bower- 

 bird of Australia, the Indian roller of India and many other 

 beautiful birds are now facing the same danger. Mr. Buck- 

 land states that more than 250,000 albatrosses have been 

 killed in one year on a few islands in the Pacific Ocean. 

 These birds, like most of the others, are killed in the breeding 

 season, and the destruction of a pair of birds at that season 

 means the destruction of their brood as well. Two hinidred 

 and fifly-nine thousand of these albatrosses were killed on 

 Laysan Island, a United States government bird reservation, 

 in 1910, The bird butchers were arrested by the crew of a 

 LTnited States revenue cutter, but too late to save the birds. 



