COCOS— THE ISLE OF PIRATES 227 



note revealed the only species of insular cuckoo, 

 my warblers were all around me, and then there 

 came to my ears the sharp snap of a bird's beak and 

 on the tip of the barrels of my gun which I had 

 left propped against a rock, perched the Cocos 

 flycatcher, hardly to be distinguished from the little 

 olive-green Galapagos chap. In silence, finally 

 came a simall flock of the only finch, anomalous lit- 

 tle birds with rather slender curved beaks, the males 

 in black, the females mottled with olive and buff 

 as though permanently saturated by the everlasting 

 rain. They flitted from twig to twig, playing at 

 warblers, finches and titmice in their feeding habits. 

 All the species of birds were seeking flying ants, 

 small beetles and caterpillars. 



A favorite feeding ground was at the limit of 

 high tide where I saw all but the cuckoo again 

 and again. Here, too, came the ugly rats and twice 

 we saw domestic cats, quite as wild as leopards, 

 tearing at decayed fish, snarling at us and dashing 

 away at our approach. The birds were as tame as 

 those of the Galapagos, and when they were not 

 seeking for food they were investigating us. On 

 almost every tree were little Anolis lizards, scamp- 

 ering up and down the bark, and in flecks of sun- 

 light expanding their relatively enormous, flat, 

 bright yellow throat wattles both to charm their 

 mates and to intimidate their rivals. 



I picked out the nearest ridge summit and struck 

 upward along an open grassy slope which, from the 

 Arctiirus, had looked like soft clover. In reality 

 it was far different — a sort of elephant grass, six 



