Howland Is. Birds and Rats — Howland 
Hague like Stetson naturally thought that 
the rats had come ashore from a wreck, al- 
though he saw no signs of wreckage. An 
hypothesis that they swam ashore from the 
wreck of a Spanish ship 200 years before 
perhaps should not be abandoned, for possi- 
ble variations of isolated populations of Rattus 
rattus are great. 
If they are indeed Polynesian rats ( exulans ) 
the implications are far-reaching for they were 
almost certainly introduced on a great many 
Pacific islands by the wandering Polynesians, 
as were dogs, hogs, parrots and lizards, four 
hundred years before Captain Cook’s first 
voyage. Evidences of the occupation of How- 
land Island by the Polynesians were found 
by Hague and later visitors, although they 
seem to have escaped Mr. Stetson’s sharp 
eye. If Polynesian Rats behaved (even some- 
times) in the manner described here, there 
must have been a holocaust of the land-birds 
of many Pacific islands. Sea birds have been 
able to protect themselves better as a rule, as 
witness the record of the certain extinction 
of 68 forms (species and subspecies) of Pa- 
cific island land-birds within the past 200 
years, as against four populations of birds 
that find their food at sea. The probability is 
that many interesting native species were ex- 
tirpated by rats long before the arrival of 
Europeans. 
The island referred to as "Huafo” is prob- 
ably Guafo off the coast of Chile. Early 
editions of "Sailing Directions” hint of wild 
dogs and wild men there. 
To whatever species the rats belonged, they 
most probably killed off the tern colonies on 
Howland Island. Hague noted in I860 (Joe. 
cit.) that these birds "are almost entirely 
wanting on Howland’s, and their absence, I 
think, may be attributed to the depredations 
of rats.” He observed rats sucking the blood 
of the smaller birds on Baker’s Island, 40 
miles away, and Ellis (1937) records that terns 
no longer visit that island. These were prob- 
ably Noddies (. Anous stolidus) and sooty terns 
( Sterna f us cat a ) . 
105 
The birds mentioned by Stetson as having 
"the general shape of small pelicans” were 
undoubtedly three species of boobies, the 
Red-Footed {Sula sula rubripes ), the Brown 
{Sul a leucogasier plotus) and the Blue- Faced 
{Sula dactylatra personata). Specimens of all 
three have been taken there recently and are 
in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. Hague 
records also Tropic Birds (Phaethon), nesting 
under large blocks of rock. 
Botanists find it impossible to believe that 
Stetson referred to a tree called "Kou” by 
Hawaiians {Cordia sub cor data) , but stunted 
specimens grow there now and are recorded 
by Hague (1862) as present in I860. He 
wrote: 
"Near the center of the island there are one 
or two thickets of leafless trees or brushwood 
and occupying an area of several acres. The 
tops of the trees, in which the birds [probably 
the Red-Footed Booby] roost, are apparently 
quite dead but the lower part near the roots, 
show signs of life after every rain ... it is 
said to be a species called by the natives of 
the Sandwich Islands 'Kou’.” 
That these trees were planted during the 
six years between Stetson’s and Hague’s visits 
is quite unlikely. 
The subsequent history of the island has 
been told by E. H. Bryan, Jr. in his American 
Polynesia and the Hawaiian Chain (1942) and 
by Sir Alfred F. Ellis in Adventuring in Coral 
Seas (1937). This involves nothing but the 
business of the removal of guano and the 
affairs of the American Guano Company and 
the United States Guano Co. until 1878, and 
John T. Arundel Co. until 1891. Hutchinson 
(1950) estimated that about 125,000 tons of 
guano were removed from the island: the 
supply is probably now exhausted. A small 
colony of men was established on Howland 
Island in 1935 and an airplane landing strip 
constructed by the United States government. 
It was to this field that Amelia Earhart ex- 
pected to fly from New Guinea in 1937, on 
her attempted world-flight, but she never 
arrived and indeed was never seen again. 
