Wirtz, W, Feb* , S • 
1963 ATF -51- 
males is © bright blue-green, while the corresponding area on the females 
is merely a slightly darker blue than the bill. This species does not, of 
course, have external noses, and it appears that they are able to breath 
when the bill is closed because there is e apace between the tomia.back 
near the base of the bill. 
I observed three tropicbirds in the air, and was fortunate to find 
one on a nest on the ground. The nest was toward the west end on the south 
side of the island. It was right on the ground nt the base of some bushes. 
There h^d evidently been a fire in this area in the past few months, and 
most of the bushes were bare of all but new sprouting leaves, so that the 
bird was quite conspicuous on the ground. It was the male, and there was one 
egg in the nest. The egg is heavily speckled with red on a cream background. 
The white feathers of this species have an interesting pink glow to them which 
is only obvious when the light strikes them at a certain angle. This is 
probably a structural color. 
In the afternoon we walked around the beech and picked up two immature 
gull carcasses on the east and southeast shore. There were two more of the 
large speckled brown gulls we have been picking up. We also picked up 
another horned puffin dead on the beach. 
Johnny Me Daniel stopped over this evening with a good gull specimen 
he picked up on Kure. It is possibly and immature mew gull, but we are not 
sure. He reported that there * re about 10 others there. We hope to get more 
when we go over on Sunday. 
We spent all this evening preparing bird skins. We'll probably try 
to get back to Pearl and Hermes on Monday now if the weather improves. 
