Lisianskl engaged in the Killing of the harmless birds whose life we have 
A. 
just inspeoted. It is said that one lot of plumes had been sent to Japan. 
Yet officers of the Thetis estimated that wings and other feathers of more 
than a quarter of a million birds were stored in the old buildings on 
Laysan awaiting shipment. The vast rookeries had been decimated systematical¬ 
ly by men armed with dubs. Hand cars and the old rail line left by the 
guano workers had been utilized to bring the spoils to camp for preparation 
and treatment and the ground about displayed the sad accompaniment of 
y 
decaying carcasses and dead or starving y o i 
Ol/2. la 
usual to plume hunting 
r K _ 
ope r a tio ns- among which wandered a few bewildered or crippled birds. Prompt 
aotion had. however* saved the rest of the bird colonies and free from 
further attaoK the albatross and tern were left to regain something of 
their former number. 
Vfoat two rabbits may do . 
With danger from plume hunters eliminated one might suppose that 
the bird colonies on this distant bit of American soil would flourish 
# 
as in ages past. Further tribulation, however* was in store. Disturbances 
to the supersensitive adjustment of nature*s forces through the coming or 
the temporary presence of civilized man are often strange and unexpected 
in their appearanoe and cumulative effects. As an instance we find on _ , 
as*- 
Laysan a tremendous damage wrought through the agency of what wo might 
consider the most harmless and inoffensive of man's household friends* tofea 
domestio rabbit 
