REPORT ON COLLECTIONS OF BIRDS MADE BY 



UNITED STATES NAVAL MEDICAL RESEARCH 



UNIT NO. 2 IN THE PACIFIC WAR AREA 



By Lt. ROLLIN H. BAKER, H(S), USNR 



Research DiTnsion, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery 



U. S. Navy, Washington, D. C. 



(With Six Plates) 



INTRODUCTION 



A study of animal life and associated ectoparasites in the Pacific 

 war area was made by the L.aboratories of Mammalogy and Aca- 

 rolog>% United States Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2. In the 

 course of this study at a number of island groups, land vertebrates 

 were collected, examined for parasitic life, and made into museum 

 skins for accurate identification. Approximately 1,300 specimens of 

 birds were obtained in the period from June 1944 to December 1945, 

 and now are deposited in the United States National Museum, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. 



Field work was begun in May 1944, when an advance party headed 

 by David H. Johnson and G. W. Wharton, Jr., was sent to the 

 Southwest Pacific to study mite-borne scrub typhus (tsutsugamushi 

 disease). During their period of duty in this area, they collected at 

 Espiritu Santo (New Hebrides), Bougainville and Guadalcanal 

 (Solomon Islands), Manus, Ponam, and Mussau (Bismarck Archi- 

 pelago), and Samar (Philippine Islands). This party joined the rest 

 of the field group in March 1945 at Guam, where laboratories were 

 being established. Collections were then made at Guam and Rota 

 (Mariana Islands), Ulithi and Truk (Caroline Islands), Palau 

 Islands. Iwo Jima (X'olcano Islands), and Okinawa (Riu Kiu 

 Islands). 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



The opportunity to visit the islands and collect specimens as part of 

 a medical research project was made possible through the interest and 

 support of Commodore Thomas M. Rivers, IM(S), USNR, then 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 107, NO. 15 



