FERNANDO DO NORHONA. 8 



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and boatswain birds and frigate birds (Tachypetes aquila). These 

 latter soared high overhead, looking, with their forked tails, like 

 large kites. 



All these birds nest on the rock. They circled round our 

 heads in vast numbers as we stood on the top of the rock. The 

 frigate birds put their nests here well out of harm's way, on the 

 very verge of a precipice which was quite inaccessible. I could 

 look down and see the nests, five or six of which were built 

 close together, almost touching one another, and each containing 

 a single egg. 



On the low cliffs of Booby Island, the noddies and boobies 

 nest on all the available ledges, and sat on their nests quite 

 undisturbed as we rowed past them. It was curious to see the 

 doves nesting together with these two sea birds on the same 

 ledges and with their nests intermingled with theirs. The 

 utmost harmony seemed to prevail on the breeding ground. 

 A similar association of land and sea birds occurs in Great 

 Britain. In caves on the coast of Harris, in the Hebrides, 

 starlings and rock pigeons nest together with cormorants.* 



Progression on Eat Island is by no means pleasant. The 

 calcareous sand rock of which the island is composed, is, as has 

 been before described, weathered on the surface in the same 

 curious manner as at Bermuda. The surface is here so deeply 

 excavated by pluvial action as to leave projecting a series of 

 sharp edged honeycombed pinnacles, often two feet in height, 

 and separated from one another by intervening jagged holes and 

 crevices. Into these, as they are in many places overgrown by 

 creepers, one's foot and leg readily slip and may easily get badly 

 bruised and cut ; whilst in putting out one's hand to save a fall 

 it is not at all improbable that one lays hold of a vigorous plant 

 of Jatropha urens, which can show no quarter even if it had 

 the will. 



A small Gar-fish (Belone) was caught in abundance at the 

 foot of St. Michael's Mount. A Grapsus (G. strigosus), the same 

 species as that at St. Paul's Eocks, occurred on the shore rocks, 

 but as far as I saw, Land-crabs and Sand-crabs (Ocypoda) are 

 absent from Fernando do Korhona. 



* Macgillivray, " British Water Birds," Vol. II, p. 397. 



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