NONSUCH 



water, and thereafter each morning made my 

 rounds, hke a Canadian fur trapper, reaping a 

 harvest of rare and unknown tropical coleoptera of 

 many species and countless individuals. And this 

 with two large rivers flowing past within a few 

 hundred yards. 



This very year my friend Dr. Conklin wished to 

 time his visit to Nonsuch by the breeding of Am- 

 phioxus or Lancelets, and soon after landing I sent 

 out an assistant with pail, a rope, a rowboat and 

 an outboard motor, in the certain knowledge that 

 several hauls over an exact area of fathom deep 

 sand to the northeast of Nonsuch would yield a 

 supply of these supremely interesting beings. 



This preamble may serve as introduction to the 

 last application of this general idea in my studies of 

 the bird life of Nonsuch. The yellow-billed tropic- 

 bird nests everywhere on the cliffs in almost every 

 available hole and crevice, but as far as we knew 

 no other seabird breeds here. 



Night after night, throughout all the spring 

 months we have been here, when dark closes down, 

 there come through the murk from the direction of 

 the open sea strange voices — sweet, modulated 

 tones wholly unhke the metallic pink! or tink! of 

 the tropicbirds. The calls are harmonious with no 

 element of harshness, half tones following whole 

 tones, while occasionally there rings out a trisyl- 

 labic, silvery minor chord: whee-o! whee-whee-o! I 

 have wondered often at these disembodied Sirens, 

 and finally I began to box them on the horizon of 



140 



