4 - 17-23 
43 
lighter In colorscion 3 heavier & stumpier in bill and has a 
lover-pitched and entirely different note. 
coarser 
oa"w sorrierning I would not have believed possible this afternoon. A 
Briscle-thighed Curlew stepped into a Man-o r -war bird T s nest which was left 
unguarded ±or a mornenr^ picked up the egg in its long decurved bill 3 and 
*• ° — '■> x oo dropped 1 c 3 oroke it open and ate iti Cot some film 
but nad no rime to set diaphragm so it may be hopelessly over ex- 
r 
posed. A c least, it will be a record of fact. These cursed bandits must 
have accounted for every egg 3 save 2 or 3 that have hatched in the rock 
colony of 100 pairs of Hawaiian Terns that are now sitting disconsolate 
on ora empty nests on these rocits - only 2 or 3 pathetic yng to show for 
tne uncle colony 1 s lirst attempt. Now some of them are starting anew out 
on some lower rocks which the noddies were inspecting and where the Curlew 
will have an even easier chance. Only the Sooty-backs seem fairly safe from 
them. They nest in close-packed masses of thousands upon thousands of birds 
each juso pecking distance from its neighbors. A curlew in the center of 
mat throng would be pecked and pestered out of the colony. The only danger 
to them would be from man or some other agency scaring off the inc. birds 3 
■4 
for of course the outskirts of the colony would be picketed with bandits. 
Killed a rabbit on way home. It ran 100 yds after we started it first 
/ 
Sc aid behind a yng gooney. Schlemer slipped up and grabbed it. They are 
getting rare, but it would be hopeless to try to exterminate them. Reno is 
nou even trying to use his 17 bales of alfalfa to poison them. Birds just 
V'Qfi 
it f 
u- w _L 
-l “C~ o ana r^soics arc coo scattered. buc with, a couple of 
bundled onousand holes to hide in and a readiness to become nocturnal in 
_c* 
TV, t v* r 
Ui. 
:ere is small hope of getting them all. It is patheti 
w ‘s> 
see a_l 
"ie tiny green leaves make a last scattering try now that the 
