330 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



its center of distribution near Australia and New 

 Zealand, but here was a straggler thousands of 

 miles away from home, and yet strong on the 

 wing and in good health. It became confused by 

 the ship's lights, flew on board and was not able to 

 rise from the flat deck. It is accidents such as 

 this which keep scientists from becoming con- 

 ceited, realizing as they must, how much of their 

 knowledge depends on chances. 



The stray gull was peculiar to the Galapagos, 

 and it flew around the ship wing-wearily one 

 morning, like the one I had seen the week before 

 at Cocos. Storm or wind or some strange wander- 

 ing instinct must have brought them over more 

 than three hundred miles of ocean. The white tern 

 and the two species of noddies were all Cocos 

 birds, out fishing when the drenching rain and high 

 wind forced them to come aboard for rest. 

 Numbers of birds must perish in every severe 

 storm, for although these seabirds have well-oiled 

 plumage and webbed feet, yet a strange fear of 

 the water obsesses them, and they alight on its 

 surface only as a last resort, dreading some danger 

 unknown to me, whether of some dangerous fish, 

 or of the fatal water-soaking of already drenched 

 wings. There remains of my island avifauna only 

 the most unexpected visitor — a dainty, Cocos 

 Island, yellow warbler, which appeared one morn- 

 ing in the rigging. The wind of the preceding 

 night had blown from the east, it was not over 

 strong, and the night, although dark, was without 

 rain, so the arrival of this land bird was wholly 



