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shamal this morning. Crowds came aboard, and there was general confusion + a mechanic looking over 2 broken down engines. Then the Tarut started its engine and charged its batteries, and there was general noise, while we had lunch. I pulled the eel pots and had a few small filefish, etc. Abdulla pulled his [[gergum?]] and had 3 [[underline]] Abudefduf marginatus [[/underline]], for which I have been waiting so long. There were also [[amphus?]]. This afternoon, I went around the pier with the face mask, and saw nothing new, but I did see another dull yellow and blue pomacentrid. A few pounds of fish came in this afternoon, and the boys in our crew retrieved the [[heads hammer??]], shari, and [[mthoa??]] which has a grey head and fine small hair like teeth, small mouth and red throat, and is probably a large [[underline]] Plectorhynchus [[/underline]] though there is no yellow around the eye. This will bear further study. Concerning the gūfdar, the smaller specimens a foot or so in length with thin stripes are known as rabib. I also think the term rabib applies to other species of thin broad smallish carangids, but I may be wrong. I wrote the following to Mr. Ohliger - Dear Mr. Ohliger: I am writing at this time to request passage back to New York on or about Sept. 1, 1948. As you may know, my passport is good till Sept 16, which will be approximately six months from the time I left the States to come to Saudi-Arabia. My wedding anniversary is Sept. 13th, which constitutes the reason for this request. 
My first three months in Arabia have been barely satisfactory, and I shall hope that the two months remaining shall be more productive.
I would also like to arrange a short collecting trip to Jiddah in order to compare conditions of fishing and fishes with here and the Red Sea. The National Museum is almost entirely lacking of fish specimens from both areas. I would suggest a week or 
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two weeks in Jiddah just before I return to the States, as possibly being the wisest use of my limited time.
Sincerely yours,
Donald S. Erdman
I mailed a letter to Lucile and the above to Mr. Ohliger, and then went to the shanty to lie down it was 5:00 P.M. I woke up with the alarm at 11 P.M., and Ed and I went to breakfast and Mr. Scott joined us and we went down to the pier. The fish semed a little older than last night, and they had waited 3 hours. About half the catch was bad. Gufdar was the main part of the catch, one Hamūr, several shari, several parrotfish, and 2 new yeeb (a new smooth jack), which they say will be more common later on. I saved 2 14" specimens; one rabib sized Kufdar and on yeeb, U-48-106-7. About 1:30 A.M. I drew this sketch of about a 28" Gufdar. This will give an idea of [[image - fish with spots]] the approx. shape and the distribution of blotches. The head is distinctly like [[underline]] seriola [[/underline]] whereas the scutes on the tail indicate the genus [[underline]] Caranx [[/underline]]. The counts on a 28" to tail fork specimen are as follows: 17 hard scutes, D1 6, D2 18, A-16, P-19, lower gill rakers 21, eye 7 1/2, head 3 1/2, S.L. 28" and a rabib sized specimen with black  [[strikethrough]] stripes [[/strikethrough]] bands, 19 scutes A-16, D VI-19, gr. 22, eye 7, 14" S.L. The count for the silvery yeeb or jeeb are D2 25, A 23, 14 hard scutes, P 18, gill rakers 19, eye 4 1/2, head 3 1/2, depth 3 1/5, S.L. 14."
June 21 - Tho calm again last night and early this morning. There was a moderate shamal wind blowing at sunrise and after sunrise. A load of several 100 lbs. of 6 inch shrimp came into the fish pier at 8 P.M. They did not look bad tho I would be in no rush to eat several platefuls. I had copious notes to tend to this morning.

Transcription Notes:
mthoa + motha ?