2o 
4-11-23 
taking off the "work party" that were marooned here last night. 
Wind has dropped to the normal no. e. trade, so. as soon as Wilson had 
f 
dressed my ear Schlemmer and I started for the So. end tern colony again. 
5 
The true Noddy (Anous $tolidus) is present in considerable numbers, 
tho much less common than Micranous , and is either a later nester, or else 
is disgusted with the lack of bushes it used to nest in. No signs of 
nesting or of even contemplating a colony site in any event. 
Wilson went shark fishing in "Shark Hole” at N.W. corner of the island 
and caught 2 of the host that swarms there. These are a different sp. from 
the Sand Shark they are getting on board the ship, having a white-tipped 
dorsal fin and other specific if not generic differences. To noon today 
the crowd has accounted for 38 sharks. 
But the danger of the island lies not in sharks but in the chance of 
stepping on one of the hundreds of rotten gooney eggs that litter the 
island everywhere but particualrly in the vicinity of the lagoon where 
the nests may have been v flooded out. At any event they have lain in this 
blistering sun since Feb. and are in highly explosive & nauseous condition. 
One I measured was h l/8 !: X 2 l/lb". 'Watch your step‘ ! is our motto. Yet 
Wetmore saw a curlew top one of these disgusting messes today and sip its 
stinking contents with evident gusto. This must be rare, however, for a 
number of gooney eggs near camp have been passed almost hourly by the 
dozen or more curlew that have set up as camp scavengers without being even 
eyed or molested. If they regularly ate gooney eggs the latter would have 
disappeared long since. Most of their thieving is probably restricted to 
the eggs of the Man-o 1 -war Bird as a maximum & from that on down, with 
•v\ c, v»■*- "i r*' ' "i o *v* for'"— ■- 
V W\ — U W .Jk. C • J — C fcV 
on uern eegs. It strikes me that the inability of the 
small birds to hide their nests from the persecution of the curlew, finch 
2c turnstone under present bare and denuded condition may well be the actual 
