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National Geographic : 1925 Jul
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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE Photograph by Alexander Wetmore THIE CAMP OF THE AUTHOR'S SCIENTIFIC PARTY ON JOINSTON ISLAND tempted to land, and four of their num ber drowned; the survivor, William Hal ford, brought news of the plight of the Saginaw and a ship was dispatched from Ionolulu to rescue her crew. The ship's gig, which made the perilous journey of more than 1,300 miles for aid, may be seen in the Naval Museum at Annapolis. THE FIRST NATURALISTS TO VISIT OCEAN ISLAND So far as I know, Green Island had not been visited previously by natural ists, so that our explorations were made with keen anticipation. A shelving beach of coral and shell sand, 50 to 80 feet wide, extends entirely around the island. Inland we found se ries of low sand dunes grown with a pe culiar shrub, sometimes known as beach magnolia (Sccevola lobelia). In the cen ter of the island, sheltered by the dunes, were irregular openings grown with grass and creepers. Ocean Island, like Pearl and Hermes Reef, is a stronghold of the Hawaiian monk seal that hauls and breeds unmo lested on the beaches. Albatross are common, and we found the open inland meadows honeycombed with myriad Pe trel and Shearwater burrows, so that every few steps we fell in to our knees through the roofs of these hidden pit falls. The inner meadows are death traps for many Laysan Albatross that drop in here casually, deceived by the apparent security and protection from wind. A few seem able to rise on the wing without difficulty; others in running to gain the momentum necessary for flight (see pages 90 and 91) trip on long vines and creepers and fall headlong. Discouraged by successive oc currences of this sort, they walk about until weakened and finally die of starva tion. Among other creatures, we found here multitudes of rats, about one-fourth the size of our gray rat and related to the native Hawaiian rat, now extinct except for a little colony on Popoia Island, off the north shore of Oahu. These rats on Ocean Island, long tailed, brown-haired, heedless creatures, appeared at dusk in swarms, so that by morning the sand was laced with their tracks. They belong to a group whose forms are widely scattered in the Pacific, and may have been distributed from island to island as stowaways in the great sailing canoes of the Polynesians. Their spread by this means is as logical as the known spread of the gray rat by means of the sailing ships of the Caucasians. 108
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