SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON 25. D. C. 
1 
20 March 1964 
Mrs. Maryanna Smellow 
Division of Birds 
Smithsonian Institution 
Washington 25, D. C. 
Dear Maryanna: 
Just one of those informal notes to let you know we're still 
alive, just barely. The weather has been against us, the CO has 
been against us (as a letter to Phil explains), and the birds are 
always against us, in fact I haven't had anything nice against me 
in over a month now. Bob is his usual spastic self, but is holding 
up quite well under fire. I recently promoted him to the rank of 
captain (I'm a general), and I now permit him to sleep at the foot 
of my bed, at attention of course. I've been reduced to a helpless 
cripple by mashing a toe out in the Scaevola in some silly way 
which I can't even recall, but this doesn't slow me down in the 
least; it only smarts a bit. 
Our albatross chicks, dear little buckets of barf, are growing 
like mad now. Some of the blackfeet weigh over 9 pounds with a full 
tummy. We have 58 blue-faced booby nests, 3 them with chicks. The 
mas are wearing blue hats this year, and the pas red. We have a 
very colorful island. The tropicbirds are laying - eggs. Bob is 
quite interested in working with this species. Some of the red-foots 
and frigates have eggs but we haven't had too much of a chance to 
work with them, especially since we're terrible at charging through 
Scaevola 10 feet high. The wedgetails are coming back, the Christmas 
Islands are coming back, the sooties are coming back, the gray-backs 
are coming back, the brown boobies are coming back, in fact just 
about everyone except Charlie Brown is here. J As soon as this infer¬ 
nal rain stops, we've run out of dry clothes, we'll go out and 
finish counting albatross chicks and get an egg count on the frigates 
and red-foots so I can send in my second overdue report like a bad 
little boy. The problem is we're so busy collecting data we really 
don't have time to think about it. 
The freezer finally arrived; that helped the CO's problem a bit. 
We got the scale like I asked Binion for; I'm not sure whether he 
sent it or you did. We got the box of recovery forms and manilla 
folders. The stuff shipped out before I left has all arrived. I 
found the extra treadles in the Sherman traps last week. I can't 
think of anything else stupid to say so I guess I'll stop. 
As ever. 
Bill 
P.S. Some of this might be included in the "droppings" if you've 
the nerve. 
