These islands were first called the Islands of Tortoises, and they have
been known for a hundred years or more. There are about sixty of them
and they are located mostly on or south of the equator six hundred
miles off the coast of Ecuador to which country they belong. They are
volcanic islands with lava rock and dry sandy dust. Very little else
except cactus or scrubby bushes grows on most of them.
Our first landing was at Seymour Island, April fourth. This is a small
flat island just off Indefatigable, one of the bigger islands 3,000
feet high. There is lots of cactus and prickly bushes on the steeper
part of Seymour, but near the shore the rocks are bare and black and
very hard, where we saw our first sea lions lying about sunning
themselves just out of touch of the waves.
In some places on the cliff there are big streaks of reddish color in
the rocks, like iron rust. All along these cliffs and at the edge of
the water and on the rocks we saw many birds—Galápagos gulls, petrels,
shearwaters, boobies, two small green herons, a great blue heron and
many little gulls. Pelicans flew about and even tried to land on the
rowboat which went ashore.
Of course at first I didn’t know the names of all the birds, but Uncle
Will or someone else helped. When they weren’t too busy they would tell
me the names and pretty soon I got so I knew most of them. I think by
now I know the names of nearly all the birds in that region.
Anyway, I like birds. At home I am trying to learn to know the names
and I have a pretty good collection of nests and some eggs. One nest is
a camp robber’s nest, which a ranger in Yellowstone Park gave to me.
Then I have a weaver bird’s nest from India and a good many others. Dad
is letting me have a little room all to myself for my collection. It
will be like a little Museum. Things will go in it like my drum from
New Guinea, which Frank Hurley gave me, and a head hunter’s sword from
Colombo.
Uncle Will told Mother “Look out or he will become a scientist,”
pretending he thought that pretty bad.
Well, I’d like to be only Mother says first I must learn a lot at
school if I want to take trips. Dad says if I do well he and Carl
Dunrud—that is a forest ranger friend of ours in Montana—will take me
on a big packhorse trip in British Columbia. I have been on two trips
something like that before, and then if I am lucky perhaps I’ll go on a
trip on a schooner up to Greenland in a couple of summers.
The dry land is full of big land lizards, four or five feet long called
Conolophus. They scurry about over the dry ridges and then run under
the queer evergreeny bushes. They try to bite but if you pick them up
by their tails they cannot reach your hand and you can carry them all
around. They have very bright colors, yellowish underneath, red heads
and close to, look like pictures of dragons only smaller. The little
black water lizards do not bite and are almost gentle when you catch
them.
There is another kind of lizard here, much smaller, with bright red
heads and dull gray bodies.
These animals and birds and sea lions have seen so few people that they
are not afraid at all and we went right up very close to many of them.
As it is right on the Equator the sun’s glare is very bright and so hot
that for the first few days all of us were very badly sunburned and
blistered; everybody was going around with sore shoulders and blistered
legs and two or three even had their entire backs burned and sore.
The first night here Bill Merriam and Dr. Cady went ashore and caught a
big female turtle that was going up the beach maybe to lay her eggs.
Sea turtles come ashore, go way up a beach and bury their eggs in the
dry sand. They leave them there till it is time for them to hatch. We
saw many deep holes in the sand from which piles of eggs had hatched.
They lay hundreds of eggs. When we were there the egg season was over.
All we saw were shells.