73 14 Nov. (cont.) spots is painted on the breast, each spot assigned a number value, 1, 2, 4, Or 7. The spot on the head is 14. By using combinations of these values, 28 birds can be marked with one color. Birds were painted with Red (R1-R28) and Copper (C1-C28). Birds paired at night were painted consecutively, such that two consecutive odd-even numbers are pirs, such as 1-2, 25-26, etc. The real power of these birds' bills was experienced, as one grabbed my hand, and Bob was actually shaking from the effort involved in opening the grasping bill. 15. Being Sun., we were overzealous in our relaxation. One new Black-foot nest was staked out by Bob. A north tower roost count yielded 235 Red-foots and 653 Frigates. One Short-eared Owl was seen as it circled around the tower before disappearing over the sea toward north point. There were many rats on the beach, but the owl ignored them - I'm sure he has no trouble finding food - he could simply stand on the ground and wait until a rat bumped into him. 16. Rat trapping All A.M. Two new records were set this morning - quickest time around area - 4hr. and 10 min. and the most rats caught in 144 traps - 146. After lunch Dave took us around the entire atoll in the boat. This took three hours. On the exposed portions of the reef (low tide) we saw both Wanderin Tattlers and Ruddy Turnstones, presumably finding food. There were many Brown Boobies sitting on rocks and one sunken ship that we found. Crossing the channel into the lagoon, a large group of about 50-60 Bottlenosed Dolphins charged at us and escorted us about for 10 minuts or so, breaching within 10' of the boat and swiming ahead of the bow. Many small individuals were seen in the group, and tended to lag behind the leaders. Sand Island had close to 50 Seals, most of which were tagged. Tags were read. There were 30 Brown Boobies and 4 Blue-faced Boobies - two unmarked, on the island. Because of poor weather and the lateness of our return, we did not set rat traps tonight.