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September 20, 19^3 
Mr, Ken E. Amernan 
ff. S. C, G. LORAN Station 
A.P.O. 105 
San f'rancisco, California 
« 
Dear Ken; 
Received j'our Progress Report, Letter, etc. today. It shows that 
you have really been doing a lot of work and is quite impressive. The 
letter got a alot of laughs from everyone. 
Yes, I can wall iramavine t at the Sooty Terns are getting harder S 
and harder to catch, ufa have decided that all birds banded should also 
be color marked. This should continue until the YAG finishes its* 
monthly trios, which will probably bs at the end of tuls year. The 
location entry on the bandin'* re orts should include "Pacific Ocean" 
since this tells anyone not knowing where Johnston Island is located 
exactly where it is. Fred says that birds in adu.lt plumage should be 
designated as adults even in the Fall, The banding manual is orobably 
written .for land birds'here in t..e states where this may cause* a dif- 
iculty. You can write up more than 100 bands on one report. That 
us, if you band 300 adult Sooty Te ns on one da-y, you can put this on 
one report. The included band numbers (in the upper right*hahd Conner) 
should include the 300 bands (ex, 003~0010^»00400), T e comment should 
^Qsd "All 300 bands same data^l, or whatever the number may be. If 
this is confusing continue on as you have been doing, but it does save 
a little writing. 
Fred and I went up to Fort Detrick last Monday and sav/ the Sand I. 
birds which had come in on Saturday. We learned that of the 152 W. T. 
Shearwaters sent 29 were dead on arrival and 8 died by KoneJay. The 
partitions in the boxes had shifted and many of tns birds had gotten to¬ 
gether and probably }iad fought each other. Also this gave them a larger 
area to move around in. They had begun to eat on Momlay which was a 
good indication that they were all right. We did notice some (2) Td.th 
bands on then. ''*e recorded them. These probably slipped through idth 
the C.G. personnel helping. The Sooty Terns arrived in fine condition 
with only one dead. However after they arrived 22 died from flying into 
to walls. They ware eating extremely tuell. The first night tney ate 
5 pounds of fishi We also talked s-dth t:;a CMe.f on the way bacK to D,C, 
and ho told us some of the news from Sand. He indicated that you stl.ll 
could not get to Johnston Island because of your clearance* Maryanna 
called and the necessary papers had already been sent to CG14 and Task 
Force 8 , etc. If you are still having a problem ivdth this, let us 
know. A lerter will be sent shortly from Dr. Hupiphrey to Lt. Hayes 
thanking him for his cooperation vdth the Project. 
