. Atoll research bulletin. Coral reefs and islands; Marine biology; Marine sciences. 67 grip on the leg and perhaps elsewhere. I am happy to say that in handling thousands of these boobies, I never made a really bad release, but Fred was less lucky. During one night of banding the significantly smaller Red- footed Boobies, which have particularly agile necks, he was grabbed in a sensitive area as we could all tell from the noise coming from his 0*+*^- Figure 12. Dangerous end of large female Masked Booby, Christmas Island. April 15, 1988. Figure 13. Pair of Masked Boobies on Christ
. Atoll research bulletin. Coral reefs and islands; Marine biology; Marine sciences. 67 grip on the leg and perhaps elsewhere. I am happy to say that in handling thousands of these boobies, I never made a really bad release, but Fred was less lucky. During one night of banding the significantly smaller Red- footed Boobies, which have particularly agile necks, he was grabbed in a sensitive area as we could all tell from the noise coming from his 0*+*^- Figure 12. Dangerous end of large female Masked Booby, Christmas Island. April 15, 1988. Figure 13. Pair of Masked Boobies on Christmas Island. April 21, 1988; the smaller male is on the right. This is the first, and last, time I ever saw a Red-footed Booby dropkicked (and so far!), but Fred apparently recovered all right as he has a number of offspring. The Masked Booby strike is very fast, however, and I learned how to capture them the hard way during my first visit to the Phoenix and Line Islands. By the time the two months of field work were completed, I had five major infections on one hand, four on the other, and my hands were swollen so badly that they flew me back from Canton, rather than let them fester during the six or seven days it would take to return to Honolulu. Other species caused little damage but could be seriously annoying, the worst of which were the Wedge-tailed Shearwaters (Puffinus pacificus). They continually battled the bander, trying to bite and claw so vigorously that one needed a glove with a gauntlet on one hand to keep one's wrist from turning red with scratches. This degree of aggressive behavior was characteristic of the Wedge-tailed Shearwater alone; other petrels such at the Christmas Shearwater (Fig. 14) were relatively docile and made little fuss. Indeed, the White-throated Storm- Petrels {Nesofregetta fuliginosa) were so tame that they would sit unrestrained on your hand for a number of moments before deciding to take flight. Because much of the banding activity was pre
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