Hawaii O'O

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When the Hon. Walter Rothschild wrote about the Hawaii O'O at the close of the nineteenth century it was still a fairly common, if shy and elusive bird. Hunters are known to have bagged a thousand specimens in 1898, for instance, in woods at Wailuku, Hawaii. But since 1934, when one was heard singing on the slopes of Mauna Loa, it seems to have become extinct. The wonder is that it did not disappear much earlier; it was destined long ago to be hunted to extinction for the sake of its lovely yellow feathers.

Some of those who took part in Captain Cook's third voyage of discovery in the late 1770s acquired many curios from the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands. These included some beautiful cloaks and other garments made principally from the feathers of certain native birds, including the O'O, several of them having been formerly worn by male members of the ruling classes. The cloak of an exalted chief could contain more than half a million feathers of various kinds; it required hundreds or even thousands of O'O birds to provide sufficient yellow feathers for a single cloak.

The Hon. Rothschild was, indirectly, one of many who helped to kill off the O'O. A keen collector of birds he could afford to pay well for specimens. Like so many exotic creatures, this bird was just too beautiful to be allowed to survive.