86 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, VoL VIII, January, 1954 
Fig. 1. Map of Marcus Island. A, weather station; B, a tochka on which noddies are breeding; C, main breeding 
place of the Sooty Tern, which also breeds on the outer coral rocks and flocks on the coastal reef. 
the Cocos nucifera, which is said to have been 
thickly planted at these lagoons in an area of 
about three acres. 
The central cover consists chiefly of Messer- 
schmidta argentea ('Monpanoki’), a brushy 
plant, mixed with a few Pisonia grandis (To- 
gemi Udonoki’), with a dense creeping 
undergrowth of Ipomoea Pes-caprae ('Gunbai- 
hirugao’) and a few grasses. There were a few 
poorly grown papayas and five bananas, the 
latter having recently been brought from the 
Bonin Islands. It is interesting that Bryan 
reports no natural papaya, but states that he 
gave some seeds, together with those of sev- 
eral other plants, to the Japanese colonists to 
plant. Bananas were also introduced formerly, 
according to him, but have never fruited, and 
tobacco was then cultivated to be smoked by 
the colonists. Small land crabs, locusts, skinks, 
and geckos as well as Oedemeridae were par- 
ticularly abundant, and we saw a dragonfly 
of Sympetrum type, said to be common in 
summer. We also obtained a young specimen 
of Rattus rattus alexandrinus, an unhealthy 
animal, found wild among the Ipomoea. 
The above general features of the island, 
however, are now in a devastated state as the 
result of the recent war. 
