SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON. D. C. 20560 
3 Februaiy 1966 
Mr. Jan Reese 
Pacific Program 
601 West Wing, Natural History Bldg. 
Smithsonian Institution 
Washington, D, C. 20560 
Dear Jan: 
Thank you very much for your recent letter and the compiled 
information concerning Pacific Program study skins. The information 
which you forwarded is almost exactly the same type of information 
which I was about to request on this next trip. You did a very good 
job on this and this information will be of considerable help. We 
will definitely be more selective in collecting bird specimens from 
many of the islands. In some cases we will need more birds of one 
sex or the other or birds of a particular age. However, you should 
expect in the future to be receiving birds at approximately the same 
rate as we have in the past since most of our future collecting will 
be done at sea. At sea, birds will be collected as they appear and 
as collecting becomes possible so most of these will be the common 
species such as Sooty Terns, Blue-faced Boobies and Wedge-tailed 
Shearwaters. 
We have looked for the McBee cards which you have listed and it 
is very possible that these cards have either been lost somewhere in 
transit or perhaps these cards were never originally made to begin 
with. I see no point in worrying about this now, all of these are 
I believe at-sea birds and the information should be available in the 
at-sea catalogue which should also be in Washine’ton. 
As to your comment about the possiblity ofI obtaining more spread¬ 
winged birds and trunk skeletons. 
instructions to preserve "schmoos”-these are birds such as you have 
received (partial skins, partial skeletons, and spread wing) and these 
"schmoos” will be preserved at various times and as opportunity aidses 
and as the various species become available. I am sending a reminder 
along to SIC 11 fellows at Pago Pago - reminding them to preserve some 
of these "schmoos" as well. I might add here that one series of spread- 
wings was lost here in Honolulu due to extensive bug damagejhowever, we 
should be able to counteract this in the future now that we have drying 
and fumigation trunks. 
