Howland Is. Birds and Rats • — Howland 
103 
line and they became free. Such few birds as I treated to this trick would at first 
finding themselves fast to an anchor of some sort flutter into the air and fly off 
generally in opposite directions at their best speed until brought up and often down 
to earth with a sudden jerk as the line between them tightened. After going through 
every sort of move to get apart they would generally drop to earth and sit sullenly 
down to wait for Nature to release them. In one case one of the birds threw up his 
rat but promptly swallowed it again and evidently made up his mind to keep his 
dinner even at the cost of a long wait for digestion to relieve him of his enforced 
partner. After rehearsing in my mind the habits and occupations of the fowl and 
vermin, I am of the opinion that the young of each is the prey of the other and that 
except where eggs are cracked by the birds themselves the rats do not affect an appre- 
ciable amount of damage by their destruction of eggs. I only observed a few caset 
where the rats were successful in rolling a whole uncracked egg to a point where is 
was pushed over a ledge with sufficient drop to break it when it landed below. How- 
ever, it would require a much longer sojourn than mine and a trained observer to 
come to accurate conclusions with regard to the life histories of these so strangely 
assorted creatures on thy property. The schools of fish from which the fowl draw 
their chief substance are similar in size and habits to schools of small herring and on 
some days seemed to completely surround the Island in a solid mass staying from 
rather close in on the reefs to sometimes a mile or more off shore. The birds did their 
fishing wherever the fish were breaking the surface, hovering over those parts of the 
school that were most easily gotten at and scooping the fish up rather than diving 
beneath the sea for them. As the fish sought lower levels the birds would rise to about 
sixty feet and fly off to a point where a darkling patch would indicate the fish were 
breaking water. All this on a vastly greater scale than anything I have seen at home. 
The contemplation and consideration of the cycle of events taking place in this 
humanly remote spot impresses the observer with awe, and in my case with terror, 
at the ferocity and at the same time delicacy of God’s immutable laws that govern 
the workings of our World and in spite of my anxiety of mind and extreme discom- 
fort of body created in me a humbler and more trusting faith in the Divine Om- 
nipotence . . . 
At sunrise I swept the horizon with my glass and to my unspeakable relief made 
out what seemed at first a cloudlet in S.E. close down on the water, but as the sun 
rose higher this cloud-like object stood out clearly as a sail and in an hour we could 
partake of our breakfasts with the sauce of assurance that the "ROUSSEAU” was in 
sight standing for the Island . . . The weather, remaining on the whole calm, the ship 
made very moderate progress towards us, so much so that Captain Pope evidently 
sensing our state of mind and body, dispatched a whale boat at noon when the ship 
was still, I should judge, ten miles from her station on the Westerly side of the 
Island. In spite of the heat and the considerable distance to be covered the crew of 
the boat sent her along to such good purpose that at 2 p.m. we on the Island had 
embarked in the boat and were on our way back to the "ROUSSEAU” where we 
arrived at 4:30 p.m. and very glad to get there I assure thee and have the means to 
clean up, and feel the well ordered conditions aboard the ship surrounding us once 
more . . . All three of us had had enough of Howland Island to last us a life time. 
I feel assured that the sight of a rat will never cease to make my gorge rise with 
loathing. 
