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jpm-' 
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in 1891, and there are vague records of two additional visits in the latter 
part of the last century. The guano deposits of the island were briefly 
exploited in the early part of the present century, and the avifauna fell 
prey to 
Japanese feat her-poachers about the same time 
Federal vessels visited the island nine times between 1904 and 1916 while 
patrolling the Federal Bird Reservation which was created in the Leewards 
in February 1909. Feather-poachers were arrested there in January 1910. 
The Tanager Expedition spent five days on Lisianskl in the summer of 
1923, and personnel of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife and the 
Division of Fish and Game of the State of Hawaii made aerial surveys or 
' visited briefly between 1956 and 1963. Several private and military 
scientific teams made brief visits to the island between 1950 and 1963. 
In 1963 the Smithsonian Institution undertook an extensive program of 
biological research in the central Pacific, now known as the Pacific Ocean 
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Biological Survey Program. Since February 1963 POBSP personnel have visited 
i • 
the island seven times. The initial results of our investigations are 
reported herein, with special emphasis on the vertebrate terrestrial fauna 
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G-'- 'dL v 
and the Vascular flora. Considerable effort has also been devoted to 
library research on the history of the island. Reports on other aspects of 
the program will be made at a later date. 
History 
i 
The Russian exploring vessel Neva, Captain Urey Lisiansky, was the 
sister ship of the Nadejda, whose master. Captain Adam Johann von Krusenstern, 
’ - / 
commanded the first Russian circumglohal expedition. The ships sailed from 
KrUnstadt in July 1803. They rounded Cape Horn in early March 1804 and turned 
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