Figure 1.. Operational area for vessels of the Biological Laboratory, Honolulu (broken 

 line) and area included in this summary of bird flock and fish school sightings (solid 

 line) 



traveling and feeding together, and Is often asso- 

 ciated with a school of fish. Flocks of birds ap- 

 pear to be temporary aggregations , often attract- 

 ed to a common locality by a concentration of food 

 organisms. It is not uncommon for a flock to form 

 within minutes where previously only scattered 

 birds were seen. Flocks also disperse with al- 

 most the same rapidity into widely separated, 

 scattered birds. 



The size of flocks, except in the case of 

 those with few birds, was an estimated number, 

 the accuracy of which depended upon the experi- 

 ence of the fisherman making the estimate. Also, 

 identification of the types of birds in a flock was 

 often based on the action of the birds, i.e. wing 

 beat, size, height above water, flight path, etc., 

 rather than upon a close examination. 



The presence of fish near a bird flock was 

 often only assumed from the behavior of the 

 birds, especially during cruises in which fishing 

 for surface-schooled fish was incidental to other 



duties. On cruises in which live-bait fishing was 

 a major activity most of the schools were chased 

 and fish were either caught or observed at close 

 range; such cruises comprised about 40 percent 

 of those included in this report. It was not pos- 

 sible in preparing this summary to separate 

 schools of fish which had been detected by these 

 two methods, so the numbers of total schools 

 listed include both schools which were actually 

 seen and those whose presence was deduced 

 from the behavior of a bird flock. 



