Feb. 19, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
293 
Bird Poaching in the Pacific. 
Authentic press dispatches from Honolulu de¬ 
clare that a million birds a year have been slaugh¬ 
tered for several years past on the Hawaiian 
Island bird reserves of Laysan and Lisainsky. 
Capt. F. D. Walker, of the Revenue Cutter 
Thetis, recently arrested twenty-three Japanese 
while engaged in this nefarious business and is 
said to have seized 250,000 pairs of wings. It 
is related that Midway Island and all others in 
the group, with the exception of Laysan, have 
lost all their once teeming bird population. 
In Forest and Stream during 1903-1904 were 
published long accounts of the birds of these 
islands and of their interesting ways. Dr. 
Walker K. Fisher had visited them on the Alba¬ 
tross and spent much time in observing and pho¬ 
tographing them. He told us much of their odd 
habits and above all of their tameness. They 
did not regard man as an enemy, but rather as 
a curious novel living object which required in¬ 
vestigation. 
The accounts of this recent destruction say 
that there is no evidence of any marketing of 
bird skins and feathers in Honolulu, but that the 
poachers’ spoils are probably sold by Osaka mer¬ 
chants in London, Paris and New York. It is 
thought that the bird poaching is handled direct 
from Japan by Japanese schooners ostensibly in 
the shark fishing business, which frequently call 
at the bird island group. 
Among the other advances in western civiliza¬ 
tion made by Japanese is the practice of robbing 
their neighbors. In this they are as skillful as, 
and bolder than, the white men; poaching alike 
on the seal preserves of the Bering Sea and the 
bird islands which lie to the south of them. 
An Antelope Caught by Hand. 
Bethlehem, Pa., Feb. 11.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: In 1877 I worked on the sheep ranch 
for Eaton & Gifford, on Cedar Creek, Russell 
county, Kansas. The sheep were taken out to 
graze miles away from the corrals, but the rams 
were kept separate and were herded nearer home 
by a young man about eighteen years old whose 
name I do not remember. One fine day in the 
fall the ram herd was in plain view about one- 
half of a mile from the cook shanty, when sud¬ 
denly I heard someone yelling. I looked in the 
direction of the herd and saw the young man 
waving his coat and calling. At first I thought 
it was a prairie fire, but seeing no smoke I was 
puzzled to know what was wrong. 
I hitched up the mules to the wagon, which 
was always ready for a prairie fire, with barrels 
half full of water and old wool sacks to fight 
the fire, and drove to the ram herd. When I 
came up to the herder he was holding an ante¬ 
lope down. He had tied its legs together, using 
the lining of his coat for ropes. 
This antelope, with some others, came to the 
herd, and being very inquisitive they went from 
one ram to the other trying to make friends. 
The herder lay on the ground perfectly quiet and 
presently one of the antelopes smelled around 
him and he seized and held it, tore the lining 
of his coat to tie the legs—in which he succeeded 
pretty well—and then yelled for help. 
I took the antelope to the shanty and put her 
in a small corral with a five-foot fence around 
it. At first I tied a lariat to her neck, but if I 
had left this on she would have killed herself, 
as she did not like to be tied. I took the rope 
off and left her loose in the corral. She ran 
around and around it, but did not try to jump 
the fence until the second day, when with one 
jump she cleared the fence and was off. Now I 
would like to know if there ever were any other 
full grown antelopes caught by hand on the open 
prairie. Eugene A. Brunner. 
[The truth of this remarkable occurrence is 
vouched for by one of Forest and Stream’s 
' y 
FRIGATE PELICAN OF LAYSAN. 
ALBATROSS OF LAYSAN. 
oldest readers and contributors. The final escape 
of the antelope by jumping a high fence puts a 
quietus on the commonly received belief—which 
perhaps originated with Judge Caton—that the 
antelope is unable to jump over obstacles. We 
have frequently pointed out in Forest and 
Stream that the only reason the antelope does 
not jump is because the conditions of its life 
never require it to exercise that power, and have 
instanced, as an antelope that could jump, the 
tame antelope owned many years ago in Colum¬ 
bus, Neb., by Major Frank North, which readily 
cleared an ordinary four-foot gate leading into 
a front yard. Since the building of wire fences 
over so much of the old range of the antelope, 
these animals have learned to go . through or 
crawl under these fences, though we have never 
seen one jump them.— Editor.] 
Alaska Fauna. 
North American Fauna, No. 30, by the 
Bureau of Biological Survey, deals largely with 
the great game animals of a little known coun¬ 
try and thus possesses a peculiar interest for 
big-game hunters. It is made up of three re¬ 
ports by Wilfred H. Osgood, who in 1903 and 
1904 was sent by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Chief 
of the Biological Survey, to carry on biological 
investigation in Alaska and Yukon Territory. 
A map which faces the title page shows Mr. 
Osgood’s route to have begun in Southeastern 
Alaska and to have carried him in a generally 
northwesterly direction as far as Circle City, 
thence back again to Selkirk and up the Mac¬ 
millan River. His work was chiefly done, there¬ 
fore, on the heads of streams flowing into the 
Yukon, though some of his journeyings carried 
him over toward the heads of streams flowing 
into the MacKenzie and so into the Arctic 
Ocean. He divides the country passed over into 
three sections, on each of which he reports, de¬ 
scribing its physiographic characters, enumerat¬ 
ing some of its principal plants and then taking 
up the mammals and birds of the region. The 
first report deals with east Central Alaska, where 
much is said about moose, caribou and wild 
sheep, which we shall later print in another 
place. On the trip to the Ogilvy range, Yukon 
Territory, Chas. Sheldon and Carl Rungius, the 
artist, were of the party. The whole expenses 
of the trip were very generously borne by Mr. 
Sheldon. Caribou and sheep were found here 
in large numbers, but while moose were about, 
none was seen. Mr. Sheldon killed a grizzly 
bear, and its cub was killed later. The trip up 
the Macmillan River made in September and 
October, 1904, consisted of the same party, to¬ 
gether with several citizens of Dawson and F. 
C. Selous, the African hunter. In this report 
also much consideration is given to the large 
game animals of the region—the moose, the cari¬ 
bou and the sheep—while bears, both black and 
grizzly, were seen from time to time, and the 
fur-bearers—such as beaver, marten and wol¬ 
verine—were not scarce. 
The reports give us much new information 
concerning the larger mammals and birds of the 
region traversed and are useful reading for hun¬ 
ter and naturalist alike. 
Oriole in Central Park! 
New York, Feb. 1 3.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: While in Central Park this morning 
I was surprised to see and positively identify a 
Baltimore oriole. The bird was cold and in¬ 
active and permitted my very near approach. 
There were small offerings of corn meal about 
and some suet tacked to the trees, but the oriole 
was not eating when observed. I can account 
for the presence of this charming summer visitor 
at this inclement season only on the supposition 
that it was an escaped specimen from the aviary 
further down in the park. 
Hermit thrushes were observed active and ap¬ 
parently partaking of the corn meal scattered by 
attendants. An American long-eared owl was 
also seen perched in a small evergreen. Juncos 
and downy woodpeckers were very numerous. 
Cardinals were seen and heard singing. 
Elmer Russell Gregos. 
