tobacco run wild from an ancient Schlemmer planting. Here Laysan Albatrosse 
were more plentiful than on the high sandy ridges, but either the colonies 
have never recovered from the Jap slaughter, or else they have scattered 
through what was formerly brush area and therefore seem scarcer. Certainly 
l have seen nothing to remotely approach in density the population of area 
s 
shown in old time photographers. The young, too, 
i A 
! to the adults. 
seem scarce in proportion 
Here the Man-o T -war Birds that are just mating on top of the bare So«W. 
ridge on the leafless foot-high stumps of former bushes are further advanced 
many pairs having eggs and almost all having nests. To my astonishment a 
Turnstone (A. interpres [oahuensis] rushed up to a ground nest vacated that 
second by a Man o T yar "Hawk" and pecked a hole in the fresh egg and began 
devouring it with evident relish. The dexterity and relish betokened long 
tj 
raining. 
Three or four pairs of Red-tailed Tropicbirds have eggs in this area and 
perhaps the same number of Sula cyanops are scattered about the fiat incu¬ 
bating stained and apparently :: hard-set :: clutches of 2 eggs each. S. 
piscator had only one egg in the nests I saw. 
% 
The lagoon shore swarms with thousands of turnstones and Pacific Golden 
Plover. Imagine my delight when out from a dense swarm of these shorebirds 
waddled and swam a lone drake Laysan Teal - probably'the rarest duck in the 
world, for this may well be the last survivor of the species. But while 
there is life there is hope. So far, we have not had a similar thrill or 
comfort by sight or sound of the rail, honey-eater or miller birds. The 
V»© 1 | 
expected in the tobacco patch, but not a trace did we or anyone else 
of it today. Luckily, Ken tells me, they (rail) are well established 
> * • *> 
on Aiawav. 
As we came back across the dry sand waste to camp we ran into a 
curlew 
