Fishes of the Phoenix and Samoan Islands

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Excerpt from Fishes of the Phoenix and Samoan Islands: Collected in 1939 During the Expedition of the U. S. S. "Bushnell" We arrived on Swains Island, latitude S., longitude W., on May 3 and left again on May 10. The reef around the island is. 300 to 500 feet wide and nearly ¿at, but it has a little elevation at the outer margin, which is deeply channeled so that the reef is well drained at low tide. The channels are 50 to 100 feet long. And the water coming through them spreads fanwise over the reef at low tide. Between the channels the reef is elevated a foot or more and deeply pitted with small holes that are occupied by live sea urchins, these varying from nearly white to dark purple. According to records kept by Mr. Jennings, owner of Swains Island, the present population is 154, consisting of 44 girls, 29 boys, 44 men, and 37 women. Much of the vegetation was introduced from the Samoan, Union, and Gilbert Islands. Because of adequate rainfall, Swains Island is a tropical paradise. The inhabitants live mostly on coconuts, breadfruit, oranges, bananas, pigs, and chickens, supplemented by fish. C'opra, the dried meat of the coconut, is the main product exported from this island. Each man on the island gathers and husks a cer tain number of coconuts each working day, and the women in the village cut the meat out, it takes about one and one-half minutes to remove the white meat, which is then laid out under a roof to dry. Dried copra is packed and shipped a couple of times each year to Honolulu. The women make mats from the pandanus leaves and strings of beads from the tiny corals picked up on the beach. A fresh-water lake or lagoon occupies the center of the island, around the shores of which lives a small goby. The night of May 12 I spent on Canton Island, seining fishes in the lagoon, May 13 gave me an opportunity to collect in a small section of the widest shallow channel. The next day I landed on Enderbury Island through a bad surf and over a rough reef. The reef of this island is 100 to 300 feet wide, and channels and coral heads occur at the outer edge where the waves break with great force. At night, with a flashlight, cowrie shells, spiny lobsters, shovel-tailed and other crabs, certain fishes, and many other species of animals can be found and captured. During the day these creatures hide in the rock crevices. Leaving the island on May 20, I was again on the Bushnell caring for specimens and drying plants and bird skins. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.