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PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. IX, April, 1955 
England. The birds at Howland Island have the general shape of small pelicans, but 
are of a lighter colored plumage, although there seems to be a considerable difference 
in color between the birds at different stages of their development. Their daily habits 
seem to be to alternately go off to the edge of the reefs in large flocks and fish with 
great skill and persistency for about six hours and then return to the Island and allow 
another gang to go to the fishing. There is a tremendous noise and commotion when 
a returning flock arrives from the fishing grounds, and those that have been ashore 
prepare to go to sea. While on shore the birds, except when the eggs are first laid, do 
not sit on their nests with any regularity as I suspect the sun does the incubating 
without troubling the birds so far as heat is concerned. I believe however that in the 
heat of the day when the weather is not overcast, the birds, both cock and hen, by 
some instinct will stand over and sometimes sit on the eggs to protect and shade 
them from the direct rays of the sun. I am of the opinion that a vast number of eggs 
are addled by too much sun where the old birds have been careless in letting the eggs 
lie exposed too long. The chief use the birds make of their time ashore is guarding 
their nests from rats or those of their own kind who are apparently unmated and yet 
have a keen desire to acquire a nest and rear a family. 
The nests are very varied in form and substance and are spread round indiscrimin- 
ately and on all sorts of surfaces; but as a whole they consist of a slight depression 
about a foot in diameter surrounded or marked in a rough circle by bits of coral 
intermixed with dry sea weed with which high water mark abounds. By marking a 
pair of what I believe to be fully developed birds with a band of red cotton thread 
on their legs I was able to satisfy myself that this pair at least knew its own nest and 
always returned to it after their spell at the reefs. I am of the opinion that all the other 
pairs were equally sure of their own quarters, although the confusion and aimless 
flutterings that took place constantly until darkness fell, would convince a casual 
observer that there was no law or order in the colony and that nests were used by all 
and any without reference to ownership or eggs. It would appear that at night the 
birds take turns keeping their eggs warm or hiding the fledglings under themselves. 
The young birds are fed by the old bird’s regurgitating a part of his own meal at very 
frequent intervals. During the day when not engaged in shading the eggs or feeding 
the young the bird in charge of the nest spends his or her time beating off the attacks 
of the rats. In cases where a band of well grown rats is on the warpath and makes 
an attack on a nest or group of nests, the sea fowl in that vicinity will band themselves 
together and make a concerted attack on the rats using wings, beak and talons and 
keeping their enemies quite busy until they have moved off. The young rats of small 
size have a hard time of it, as the birds often kill these under-sized enemies either 
outright or swooping off with them to the surf as I have described before. I made 
sure that under certain conditions the birds would eat young rats by catching several 
youngsters and tying them in pairs with ten fathoms of light fish line to each pair” 
These teams I set down near nests with fledglings in them and quickly observed the 
nearby old birds catch and promptly swallow these rats. The result was I soon had 
several pairs of birds in harness so to speak and to my shame, their antics to escape 
from one another with a long line between them made me laugh. I cannot feel too 
much compunction at this boyish and perhaps cruel trick, inasmuch as this device 
gave me an opportunity to study these tethered fowl at my leisure, and further I am 
sure it was not many hours before the juices of the craws of these birds rotted off the 
