File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (18135048196).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo18amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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398 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL ninety miles to the northwest of Laysan, and we were not disappointed, for we found two specimens on the beach. We killed the fe- male, but the other, presumably a male, es- caped. The kill was a fine specimen, but was so heavy and cumbersome that we found it very difficult to drag it from the shallow water on to the shelving beach. We then visited Midway, so well described in Stevenson's The Wrecker. The cablemen on Midway told us that seals occasionally wandered ashore, but that the visits were irregularly timed, and there was likely to be a straggler in summer as well as in winter. We made a survey of the islands, and en- joyed the hospitality of Captain Morrison, the head of the colony of cablemen. The captain took us around the reefs in his power launch, and pointed out the bones of the famed ship, "The Wandering Minstrel." "Wandering Minstrel,"—what an appropriate name for a boat cruising in those dreamy, beautiful waters! And the captain showed us the graves of two sailors who had not been able to stand the four- teen months of starvation and thirst that the survivors were forced to endure. We ob- tained additional data on the nesting birds, but no informa- tion relative to the seals. We considered that our chances of success rested finally on Pearl and Hermes reefs, for these never had been visited by a scientific party so far as we knew. And there we found the main breeding colony. The place consists of numerous sandspits and shoals, surrounded by extensive barrier reefs, over which combers and white-topped breakers tumble with a continuous roar. These treacherous reefs are exceed- ingly dangerous to navigation, and received their names from the two ships, the "Pearl" and the "Hermes," which were wrecked within a week of each other. Because of storms, it was thought inadvisable to stay in that vicinity longer than necessary, so we decided to spend the one day only. )\Ir. Willett visited the largest of the spits w'hile I took another cutter and started for one charted about five miles off. Unfortu- nately, the spit seemed to have disappeared, for we could not find it, although we tacked back and forth through the reefs for several hours. The crystal-like water mirrored the bottom, and the beautiful many-colored coral fishes so characteristic of Hawaiian waters darted to and fro among the head coral, and the small reef sharks slid stealthily from one deep lead to another. A school of porpoises played off our bow and came in so close as almost to splash in the boat as they cut water, and huge loggerhead turtles slept lazily on the sandy keys. Sooty-backed terns winged close to the surface, their white breasts green with reflected light, and their shrill call, "wide-a-wake," seemed entirely out of place in those sleepy tropical seas.
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Photograph bij A. M. Bailey We found two seals asleep on the beach at Lisiansky, and shot one of tliem, a large female. This warm-water seal is a huge, cumbersome creature, and difficult to handle in a tropical coun- try, without adequate instruments

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