WILL EXPLORE ISLANDS IN 
HAWAIIAN BIRD RESERVATION 
...V* i •- V/ ''**-■ V -V 
Plans for a cooperative scientific expedition to the islands of the 
Hawaiian Islands National Bird Reservation have been perfected by the Bureau 
of Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture, with the 
Bishop Museum, of Honolulu, The start will be made from San Francisco, about 
March 21, the Navy Department cooperating by furnishing a 1,000-ton vessel 
for conducting the party from Honolulu to the various islands. 
Dr, Alexander Wetrnore, of the Biological Survey, will be in charge of 
the expedition, assisted by Charles E. Reno, of the same bureau. The work 
of the Biological Survey will be to make collections and gather information 
concerning the bird life of the islands, and to destroy a large colony of 
rabbits that has become established on one of the islands to the detriment of 
some of the land birds through the destruction of the scanty vegetation there. 
The magnitude of the expedition’s task may be appreciated when it is 
understood that the Hawaiian Islands Reservation consists of a dozen or more 
islands, reefs, and shoals that stretch westward from the Hawaiian Archipelago 
proper for a distance of more than 1,500 miles toward Japan, and that the 
average distance between these is something like 100 miles. 
Included in the refuge is Laysan Island, celebrated as a breeding place 
for albatrosses and other sea birds, where in the past plumage hunters of other 
nations have committed serious depredations. Domestic rabbits were introduced 
on the island some years ago by a German who was then living there, ihe in¬ 
crease of these animals threatens to destroy what little vegetation there is 
on the island, and with its disappearance several species of small land birds 
peculiar to Laysan would perish. 
