73 
V 
y 
14 Nov. spots is painted on the breast, each spot 
assigned a number value, 1, 2 4, Or ?. The spot on 
(the head is 14. By using combinations of these values, 
28 birds can be marked with one color. Birds were 
(painted with Red (R1-R28) and Copper (C1-C28). Birds 
paired at night were painted consecutively, such that 
two consecutive odd-even numbers are pirs, such as 1-2, 
25-2 6, etc. The real power of these birds'bills was 
\ ; experienced, as one grabbed my hand, and Bob was actually 
shaking from the effort involved in opening the grasping 
bill. 
15. Being Sun. , we were oversealous in our relax- 
ation. One new Black-foot nest was staked out by Bob. 
A north tower rosst count yielded 235 Red-foots and 
653 Rrigates. SCne Short-eared Owl was seen as it circled 
around the tower before disappearing over the sea 
(toward north point. There were many rats on the beach, 
-but the owl ignored them - I'm sure he has no trouble 
finding food - hex could simply stand on the ground and 
wait until a rat bumped into him. 
lo. Rat trapping All A.M. Two new records were set 
this morning - quickest time orourd area - 4hr. and 10 
min. and the most rats caught in. 144 traps - 146. 
After lunch Dave took us around the entire atoll in 
the boat. This took three hours. On the exposed 
portions of the reef (low tide) w e saw both Wandering 
Tattlers and Ruddy Turnstones ^presumably finding food. 
There were many Brown Eoobiesy sitting on rocks and 
one sunken ship that we found. Crossing the channel 
I into the lagoon, a large- group of about 50-60 
Bottlenosed?' Dolphins'-dnarged at us and escorted us about 
for 10 minuts or so, breaching within 10 1 of the boat 
and swim in g ahead of the bow. Many small individuals 
were seen in the group, and tended to lag behind the 
Is/ : 
leaders. 
Sand Island had close to 50 Seals^ most 
J 
of which were tagged. Tags were read. There were 3 O' 
Brown Boobies and L j Blue— faced Boobies^ two unmarked, 
on the island. Because of poor weather and the late- 
ness of our return, we did not set rat traps tonight, ty 7 
\ 
