6 
nere there were no. natives to greet us but a sail could be 
observed. l\io doubt the natives had seen the lights of the ship 
and were sending a party to investigate. }for as I latter found 
out a native of Uteric makes some claim to owning this atoll 
I was tempted to offer a price. So far as bird populations go 
the islands are inconspicuous, there were no frigates observed 
and only an occassional frown Booby, one of which had a red painted 
mark on its breast indicating that it was banded on Bikar by us 
a few days ago and another with an oraijge streamer indicatin/? 
it had been banded at Johnston Atoll. There is also a larve 
Sooty-Tern population on the island, 60,000 or more many of which 
had eggs and chicks though it vms evident that there was some 
native predation of both eg?s and adults, it was interesting 
that we found bones of both frigated and boobies near the 
campfire pits of the natives,! am convinced that the natives 
are responsible for the absence of frigates and the sparcity 
of Boobies.The island also had an abundance of fairy terns 
some comiTion nd iiawaiin toddies. Shore birds were represented 
by Bolden rlovers, -luddy Turnstones, janderin^g Tatlers and 
Bristle-thighned (Jurlews. There v;ere also some 20 Crested Terns 
nesting. The other two islands which i visited in the Atoll 
presented little else. They, unlike Taka Island, do not have 
cocnut palms and are considerably smaller, i did observe 
later on nesting fairy Terns and neef Herons on Wotourikku-to 
asland, iviembers of the other party obsefved nesting Hed-tailed 
Tropicbirds on Hluk and an interesting Hawaiin noddy of 
singular coloration was collected there. 
In the afternoon we returned to the ship with the skiies 
darkening for a storm. 
October 21, 1964 
xtain set in for the day thus I spent these hours aboard the 
ship working on records and making up skins, in the evening 
the natives whom l mentioned yesterday and who had spent the 
day camped on the island sailed over to the ship, i had 
observed them through out the day wandering along the beach 
and wondered why they ahd not come over to the shop earlier, 
the reason proved that they wene collecting shells v/ith which 
to trade for wares. 
