the Presidential Cruise of 1938 
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Some of the heat game fishing in the world is to he found off 
west coast of the Americas. So prolific and interesting is the marine life 
of this part of the Pacific that on my third cruise in these waters, which 
this year was to include a visit to the Galapagos Islands, I thought it would 
not ho inappropriate to combine "business'* with pleasure and go fishing for 
science and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as for sport. 
So "fishing" in the most comprehensive manner became the order of 
the day during the glorious three weeks and three days that the cruise lasted. 
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Sot only war© fish sought for sport and science, hut all manner of other 
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spl epfl’ttf ic : collecting was undertaken, including bird hunting and botanizing, 
dredging, ti depool and shore collecting, mil all kinds of endeavor that might 
yield something of interest to the Smithsonian Institution and our national 
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Collections. 
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Throughout the entire expedition one could not have asked for more 
perfect weather, At notoriously wet and rainy Cocos Island, off the coast of 
Costa Hica, we struck a spell of more or less clear, sunny weather with little 
or no appreciable precipitation during the two and a half days we spent in 
the vicinity of this evergreen isle. At Panama, too, the wet season turned 
so dry and sunny that the local residents of the Canal Zone were heard to re- 
mark that we would have to move on in order that the seasonal rainfall might 
resume its normal course. Only twice during the cruise was any rain of con- 
sequence experienced, just before we anchored at Clipperton Island and again 
while approaching and during our stay at Old Providence in the Caribbean. 
