SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON 25. D. C. 
2 September 1964 
Dear Passion-flower: 
Greetings from the people from the lost island. We are 
busy doing great scientific things, and banding lots of birds, 
as the enclosed reports should attest. The sooties will be 
leaving soon and then it will be difficult to band lots of 
birds. But the Bonins are returning and the wedgetails are 
still holding forth so we’ll try. 
I hope you will attack the enclosed list of needed items 
with your usual tenacity and have said items winging their 
way back to us before they are needed. The chemicals of course 
have to be in pint bottles and boxed in metal ammo boxes. Use 
lots of Kimpak around them. Please send someone downtown to 
buy me one yellow, one orange, one brown, and one purple Magic 
Marker. I’ve gone gay. If that copy of the Black Book is 
still floating around the office I have a request for it out 
here. We just need the thin leather gloves, not the big heavy 
ones we use for albatross. My skin still isn't that tough. 
I've written to Dr. Ely in Hono, but on the chance he's still 
there the following to him. 
The tropicbirds, wedgetails and boobies are rapidly re¬ 
ducing our mist nets to rubble. We could probably keep about 
30 nets going on the island this fall, pickings will be slim, 
but we've already picked up what is probably a non-Project 
banded plover. If you think increased netting efforts are 
worthwhile I need about 60 twenty foot nets, plover and turn- 
stone mesh, preferably blond. Otherwise I'm afraid our present 
supply of 15 nets isn't going to last very long. 
Some comments on the tentative personnel schedule. I 
wonder just when Bob Fleet will be back to Kure. I hope that 
there will be no gap between Stadel leaving and Fleet arriving. 
We can't afford that out here, and since Dennis doesn't seem to 
be going on a ship I guess he has no deadline to meet about 
getting back to Hono. As for myself, Iti like very much to stay 
on Kure till November 22. Unless there is some paperwork I 
have to do in Washington before then I feel I'm contributing 
much more to the project being out here. If I crack before 
then I'll let you know, but I doubt that will happen. Kepler 
could then replace DuMont at the end of October instead of me 
at the beginning, or he could replace Paul the end of September 
and Paul could fill the question mark spot presently on the 
schedule for the fifth man on the at-sea study. 
