observed in the Western Pacijic. 213 



Fanning group of islands^ lying between 150° and 160° W. 

 long.j were visited. Proceeding south from Honolulu, we 

 anchored at Washington Island, but only remained three 

 hours, as, although we were in 50 feet of water, the natives 

 said that, with any wind and swell, it would be breaking 

 at our anchorage. Anous stoUdus was the only bird shot 

 here. The population consists of one white man and thirty 

 natives ; and copra, or the dried kernel of the cocoa-nut, is 

 exported. 



Fanning Island is a pretty atoll, being fringed with a 

 sandy beach, on which are numbers of cocoa-nut trees. A 

 portion of the lagoon is quite shallow, but there is a deep 

 entrance and sufficient mooring-ground to accommodate a 

 few very large ships; the tides are, however, exceedingly 

 strong. The inhabitants consisted of four whites and 

 twenty-one natives, occupied with the exportation of guano. 

 Anous stolidus and Gyyis Candida breed here, and the lagoon 

 is filled with numerous brilliantly-coloured fishes, amongst 

 which the peculiarly-marked Acanthurus achilles and Julis 

 lunaris may be mentioned. 



Christmas Island, reached on Oct. 6th, is a very large atoll, 

 shaped like a horse-shoe, with the toe to the eastward. The 

 N.W. heel of the shoe, if it may be so described, is a sandy 

 spit on which the few inhabitants, consisting of one white 

 man and five natives, live, and export black-edged pearl- 

 shells. Quite close to their houses I shot two of the little 

 Grey Noddy, Anous ceeruleus, and I picked up an egg, which 

 from its small size and a})pearance, must have belonged to 

 that species. Being told of a breeding-place about five miles 

 on the north side of the lagoon, I pulled over there in a 

 heavy shower of tropical rain, and found it to be a large 

 "wideawake fair.'" Sterna fuUginosa was breeding there in 

 great numbers, and we collected buckets-full of eggs, ofi" which 

 we had in most cases to push the birds. A few pairs of 

 Pha'etho?i rubricauda, Fregata aquila, and Sulafusca were also 

 breeding ; but there was not a sign of the little Grey Noddy, 

 whose large breeding-place I was so anxious to discover. 

 One of the natives, however, volunteered to pilot me next 



