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Lawrence venture. I very much wanted to return there this fall to follow up our 
good work of last month in that direction, hut Max has convinced me that in order 
to have any chance of success there we’d have to leave at the height of the season 
here. We could easily miss the golden plover completely so it seems better not to 
risk it. An Aleutian alternative sounds preferable for this year, perhaps we can 
worg the breeding ground on St. Lawrence and the Seward Peninsula next spring. The 
FSR 791 is making a trip down to Adak and Atka (i think) in early September to de¬ 
liver natives to those villages for the winter. If one or both of us could accom¬ 
pany that trip I f m sure we’d get some good observations. Then in mid-September they 
will leave the Pribilofs again for Seattle leaving natives off at Nikolski and Dutch 
Harbor. We can let our heavy gear go on down to Seattle with them while we fly to 
Cold Bay, Anchorage, (Fairbanks ?), Juneau, Seattle, (Portland?), and Washington DC. 
Unless you think we should store gear in Alaska for use next year? Such storage could 
be arranged at St. Paul, Cold Bay, or Anchorage, th§ latter being best if we intend 
to work the breeding ground next spring. 
28 July, lbOO hours 
Max & I just returned from rappelling over some cliffs near the village to band 
some otherwise inaccessible rosy finches. The wind is blowing hard enough today that 
our mist nets have not caught anything. A crew of Aleuts is out in a small boat off 
the village landing cutting a path through the kelp to shuttle lighters through when 
the FSP comes next week (we hope). They f ve caught some fine halibut lately that we 
have enjoyed meals of here at the company houde. The Baltsos have invited us and the 
Hurds (Roy Hurd Is island manager) to dinner at their staff-house tonight. Young 
kittiwakes of both species have hatched, but the murres all still have eggs. On the 
radio I heard that 2 Japanese climbers reached the top of Mt. St. Elias, 18,008’, the 
third ascent of the mountain. My friend Scott Hamilton was on that Jap expedition and 
I’m sure he’ll make plenty of publicity for it. 
The weather has been generally too dark to make much use of my photographic gear 
yet, though I hope for some breaks later. It gets quite dark at night here now, but 
our shorebirds scatter on the high tundra for fear of foxes and are far too shy to get 
close to with a light. We’ve been able to do quite a bit of collecting and will do 
still more. Plants and Insects too. I even have some rocks, the geology of this Is¬ 
land being very Interesting and apparently not written up in detail anywhere yet. Some 
of It Is uplifted beds of metamorphosed conglomerates overlaid by lava. There Is very 
little sand here, whereas St. Paul is mostly sand and cinder cones. 
These turnstones seem to till the soil in the killing ground for what it is they 
like to eat, they certainly don’t concentrate on maggots. 
Enough for now. Sincerely, 
J. Yin Hoeman 
Pesearch Assist. 
Pacific Project 
