Johnston, D. V. 1964 3 13 Apr Wake Island sized flock of Sooty Terns flying over us in the dark. But out on the point, there were thousands--some flying and calling, others sitting or standing all over the road and field-like area. First we proceeded to seek out nests of Brown Boobies. These wer on the lagoon side of the point, above high tide level, and roughly composed of old sticks. There was absolutely no protection against sun, rain, cats or rats. The nests were usually 25-50' apart, but occasionally as close as 10'. Five nests held two eggs, 8 others had a single egg or single chick. The egg was as large as a hen's egg and was pale-tannish white with a king of light bluish undercoat. Male boobies of this species have pale bluish bills, females pale yellow-green. Some of the chicks were getting in brown primaries, secondaries and rectrices; others were pure, downy white. The adults gave a nonmusical "qwok." At least 3 of the adults were molting their rectrices. 9 of the brooding or incubating adults were males. We then literally waded into the Sooty Tern colony--a million birds? Between us, by grabbing and catching any available bird on the ground, we banded 1000 adults in ca. 2 1/2 hrs. Many of these were incubating adults. Only one nest that I saw contained 2 eggs. The others were 18-24" apart on the average, but occasionally 12" apart. Actually there is no nest, merely a crude shallow scraping away of debris. Each egg was ten-white with a variety of chocolate brown spots especially at the large end. I judged that some 70% of the birds I caught were nesting but Bob thought this figure was too high for the colony. In the dark it appeared as though the incubating bird was accompanied by the mate a few inches away. Usually the