ASCENSION ISLAND. 563 



Boatswain-Bird Island is a high rock separated from the 

 main island by a narrow channel. The sides of the rock are 

 precipitous, but some sailor had managed to climb up and fix a 

 rope at the summit, so that it hung down the cliff. The cliff 

 surface was covered with guano, hanging everywhere upon it in 

 large projecting masses and stalactite-like formations. We 

 clambered up the cliff by means of the rope, being half blinded 

 and choked by the guano dust on the way. 



In holes on the sides of the cliff, burrowed in the accumulated 

 guano, nest two kinds of Tropic Birds (Phaethon cethereus and 

 P.flavirostris). In bracket-like nests, as at St. Paul's Bocks, fixed 

 against the lower parts of the cliffs, breeds a species of Noddy 

 (Anoits), and together with these birds, a beautiful small snow- 

 white Tern with black eyes (G-ygis Candida), called by the seamen 

 the White Noddy, to distinguish it from the Black Noddy. 



The summit of the rock is flat, and the plateau is covered 

 with guano, in hollows on which nest the Booby (Ma leuco- 

 gaster) and a Gannet (S. piscatrix), and the Frigate Bird (Tachy- 

 petes aquila). The throat of the Frigate Bird hangs in the form 

 of a sort of pouch in front. This pouch is bare of feathers and 

 coloured of a brilliant vermilion, looking as if rubbed over with 

 some bright red powder. The bird is thus very handsome. 



All the birds allowed themselves to be knocked over with 

 sticks on their nests or when near them on our first reaching 

 the plateau, but they soon became generally alarmed and took 

 to flight. The Frigate Birds were on the look out whenever the 

 Gannets were molested, and snatched the small fish winch they 

 disgorged, profiting thus by the general disaster. A single 

 " Wideawake," the name given to the Tern (Sterna fidiginosa), 

 which breeds in millions gregariously at "Wideawake fair" on 

 the main island, was found on the plateau. The bird was nest- 

 ing all alone amongst the Gannets for some reason or other. 



It was striking to find breeding thus in the middle of the 

 Atlantic, on the top of a steep volcanic rock, the same 

 assemblage of birds which we had seen breeding together on 

 a coral island at sea-level off the north-east coast of Australia. 

 At this latter island, namely Eaine Island * there is a third 



* See page 348. 



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