Identifier: birdlore211919nati (find matches)
Title: Bird lore
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: National Committee of the Audubon Societies of America National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals National Audubon Society
Subjects: Birds Birds Ornithology
Publisher: New York City : Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
ounding picture of Cormorants (Phal-acrocorax hougainvillei) taken on SouthChincha Island, June 15, 1907. Thisspecies, the Guanay of the natives, iseconomically the most important of theguano birds. It inhabits chiefly theChincha Islands from which, between1850 and 1872, there were removed nearly11,000,000 tons of guano, having a valueof about three-quarters of a billion dollars. The photograph which we here repro-duce shows a colony of Guanays which Mr.Coker estimated to contain about 360,000adult birds, with about an equal numberof young, or over 700,000 individuals. Amonth later the colony was believed tohave increased 50 per cent. While theoriginal supply of guano was long agoexhausted, the annual deposit is so largethat it forms an important source ofrevenue, but the eagerness of conces-sionaires to remove it so disturbed thebirds that islands which they had occupiedfor years were deserted and the guanoindustry was thereby imperiled. It wasone of the objects of Mr. Cokers studies
Text Appearing After Image:
374 Bird - Lore to formulate methods of operation on thepart of the guano collectors which wouldprevent this catastrophe. It is an eloquent comment on the waysof what we are pleased to term civilizedman, that the procedures recommended byMr. Coker, while less severe, were, ineffect, those adopted by the Inca beforethe Conquest! Quoting from an earlyauthor, Mr. Coker writes: In the timeof the Inca Kings, such vigilance inguarding the birds was maintained that,at the time of breeding, it was forbiddento anyone to enter on those islands underpenalty of death, in order that they mightnot disturb them nor drive them from theirnests. Neither was it permitted to killthem at any time, within or withoutthe islands, under like penalty. Here,surely, we have one of the earliest as wellas one of the most drastic of bird laws. Mr. Cokers paper abounds in furtherinteresting observations. He has made acontribution of the first importance toour knowledge of the bird-life of what webelieve is, ornithol

Note About Images