^- 3-23 
20 
a powerful surge Gray-backed Terns are beginning to lay their single egg 
on the bare rock or on the wave sand in depressions in the top of the dike. 
But best of all is the Love Tern, balancing its egg on the most astonishing 
narrow ledges or even on top of pinnacles where any slightest movement would 
dislodge it. It would be interesting to see the parent roil an egg over in 
some of the more precarious s 
icfes. They lay a highly marked egg that for 
variety reminds me a bit of the eggs of Xantus Murrelet. Add to their 
nesting interest the charm of their gentle personalities as they hang 
motionless and silent in the air peering - curiously at you within a dozen 
feet - add their fluttering dove-like flight, their immaculate plumage, 
soft 
black-rimmed eye and blue (basally) & black bill and it seemsto me 
you have the most utterly charming sea bird I have ever met. There is no 
creaming reproach and no apparent alarm as you approach the "nest" 
- .I USX 
a gentle curiosity. One of the boys even had one alight on his outstretched 
motionless fingers, so that by closing on its toes he actually caught and 
i 
stroked it. Verily Gygas (misspelled attempt to perpetuate Ulysses 1 pilot?) 
should be the "Dove of Peace" emblem for the navies of the world. 
mu 
e island is, according to the "Hawaiian Island Navigator" (?) 1 3/^- 
m. long by 1 m. wide + 55 ft. high, and contains a salt lagoon or lake in 
the center fully a mile long. We came back by way of this lagoon after 
circling the So. E point of the island past a scattering of Black-footed 
gooneys 
They are almost entirely wanting from the west or lee-side of the island. 
Here I first saw the "dance" of this bird. I had heard so much of the "dance" 
it 
of the Laysan bird that i was frankly surprised to find the brown bird doing 
I V P Q vi-*- P’V'PC’T -* V"i CT ■? nnc 
w Cs K^ mim O C — o KJ C* m a a i.b ^ / .. . r,\ V_- i, i l 
O • _j__ 
n fact one pair of nigripes gave the 
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Ok ^ <j 
H 
ong & dance" ± have seen and heard yet. 
Down by the So. -W corner of'• the lagoon we came on a stunted patch of 
