easily upon approach of the ship* Without the us6 of the sx if j 
effective collecting: cannot be performed, except under unusual 
conditions. Flocks consisted primarily of Sooty Terns with les¬ 
ser numbers of boobies and frigates. The Wedge-tailed Shearwater 
was the only procellarid present in any numbers; the majority of 
these were irregularly encountered in mixed flocks. One blue- 
streamered Sooty Tern was sighted cja.ll miles north of Howland 
and another was collected at night 7S miles west of How_i_and. 
These few individuals still in the area which were streamerea in tUe. 
spring-summer Howland breeding colony maght not have r^-isea 
young at that time and are about to renest with the colony pre¬ 
sently building up about the island. A total of 33 blue—stream— 
ered Blue-faced Boobies were recorded throughout the grid at 
distances of up to 96 miles from Howland. The vast majority, 
However , were within 2.3 miles of the island. Beturn data iron 
Howland indicate that a considerable changeover of Blue-faced 
Boobies takes place on that island; thus tne number of oirdc. 
moving through or utilizing the grid may be higher than sus¬ 
pected (see Howland report). 
Nocturnal observations were maintained from sunset to sun¬ 
rise throughout the survey. A total of 547 miles and 71.5 hours 
of nocturnal observations were completed and 036 birds ox 1 ~ 
species were recorded* kocturnal collecting was performed o*-ly 
on the night of 9-10 December. 1 drift station was begun about 
13 miles west of Howland at sunset and continued until 0300 
-'•yi'ing which time the ship had drixted to about 33 miles d 5 -.unco 
from the island. Small groups of from 1-10 Sooty Terns were 
recorded every few minutes throughout the entire observation 
period; all were moving in an easterly direction towards the 
island. A total of 444 were recorded and 27 were collected 
including 3 Howland banded birds. An occasional Lesser Frigate- 
bird ’.vas also noted moving eastward; one was collected. Bal- 
corab did not observe any buildup of terns on the island on niis 
particular night, but a considerable buildup occurred on the 
.evening of 11 December, 
