SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20560 
July 15, 1966 
c 
Mrs. Herbert M. Church, Jr. 
Smithsonian Institution 
Pacific Program, Room 601W 
Dear Jane: 
Yesterday Dr. Pyi called and asked me if I knew anything about the tumstone 
from Alaska that was collected oij Lisianski. Since I had just finished going over 
all of of the Lisianski records I told him there wasn’t any such animal. I then 
went back over all of the trip banding reports and checked the McBeee cards (of 
which there were 25). Nowhere in any of the records that were given to me was 
even the slightest hint that a bird from Alaska had been blasted on Lisianski. 
No one from the trip even bothered to tell me that an Alaskan bird had been 
collected which didn't help matters any. I seldom get the chance to read through 
field notes and see trip reports even less often so I was completely in the dark 
about the bird. Since I couldn't find any paperwork anywhere on the bird I told 
him there must be a mistake....all I could find were a couple of other turnstone 
bands that were weported here and there in the records that are being readied for 
shipment to B.C. 
Sooooooo, this afternoon Linda called and gave me your last telegram and I got 
busy again. I cross-checked every file system in the place, checked their original 
green memo books, checked the master banding book, checked the return sheets and 
the recovery forms and then looked at 26 completely blank McBee cards for the 
specimens that were collected. Finally, I had to do the one thing I didn't want to 
do and that was dig into the bulging freezer. After about 30 minutes of digging and 
rooting around Merrill and I managed to find the banded bird. 
Just called Dr. Pyle and gave him all of the info on the bird (U p.m.) 
712 1 08013 (specimen # USNM 6I|26) banded in the Garbage Dump, St. George Is. 
as an immature 07 August 1965. Collected on Lisianski Island 18 June 1966 
from among a flock of 82 birds on a coral outcropping along the edge of 
the reef. The bird was in nearly full plumage. 
Sorry about the difficulty we had in finding this number. It gets a little 
difficult trying to find such things when the field people don't make any notations 
anywhere and then don't say aicfck anything about it. Oh well, I've been screaming 
about keeping better records so this will give me a little bit of ammunition to 
use 4H the next time I harangue about record keeping. 
