Many crab holes but very few of the large red land crabs, Gee arc inns 
planatus . were seen, A drove of "wild" pigs we saw ranging the atoll must be 
keeping their number down to near the vanishing point. When Heller and Snod- 
rass werethere in I 898 , they remarked that the island was so overrun with 
cr 
o 
land crabs that any bird shot for the purpose of making a study skin had to 
be picked up immediately or the crabs would rend it to pieces. There appeared 
to be quite a number of pigs in the drove. They must eke out a very pre- 
carious existence with little or no fresh water, and with birds, eggs, and 
a few land crabs, at most, for food, supplemented by only sparse vegetation. 
One of the young and, as it proved to be, tender pigs was shot by 
Lt. Comdr. Kelly and presented by him to the President's mess. Mr. Kelly 
saw ducks on the lagoon, but had no betteijluck with them than Heller and 
Snodgrass -Ttoday, as in 1398, they remained too far away for an effective 
shot. One specimen of the tiny Clipper ton Island skink, Smolis arundelii . 
was captured by one of the sailors. It is now the first of its kind in the 
Museum collections and is of considerable interest because of its very close 
relationship to a species widely distributed in Polynesia and not to any on 
the much nearer American continent. This state of affairs is paralleled 
by the terrestrial amphipods we got here from booby nest debris. They also 
represent 
a new species, which finds its nearest and very close relative in the Mar- 
quesas Islands, more than 1600 miles to the southeast, and not on the American 
continent or others of its adjacent islands. 
Thanks to the efforts of one of the ship's younger officers, a 
good-sized chunk of the Clipperton P.ock was obtained because of the interest 
it would have for the Museum geologist. An analysis of a piece of this rock, 
I have since learned, was first made about 4(3 years ago. Though an examina- 
tion of our material adds nothing to the original findings, the specimen is 
