CAHOWS AND LONGTAILS 



breasts are as immaculate as snow ; over the shallows 

 their plumage takes on the faintest, most delicate of 

 pale chrysoprase, and far out from land, where the 

 water draws its color from a full mile depth of 

 ocean, reflection touches the plumage with a bubble- 

 thin tint of ultramarine. When we see a tropicbird 

 in full plumage on its nest in sunlight, within arm's 

 length, a new color impinges upon our retina — 

 we can no longer call its breast and tail white, and 

 we cannot say that they are salmon or pink — the 

 delicacy of this new real tone survives no human- 

 made name, it is sheer beauty. 



In early March the tropicbirds appear and the 

 fishermen know that all the squid will vanish, solely, 

 as they think, because of the arrival of their domi- 

 nant enemies. But somewhere there are still squid 

 in abundance, for the crops of the birds bulge with 

 them, caught far out at sea, and the young are fed 

 chiefly on squid as well as flyingfish. 



There must be some significance in the constant 

 sight of three birds flying together. It seems pos- 

 sible that there are more females than males, and 

 that bigamy is not an uncommon event. On the other 

 hand, fierce battles are waged over the females and 

 I have sent my photographer to a ledge where two 

 birds had been lying for a. half hour, beak grasped 

 by beak, wings bent and twisted beneath their 

 bodies as they tumbled about or lay in angry ex- 

 haustion. They paid no attention to the man when 

 he photographed them and he finally picked them 

 up and tore them apart. Even when both had been 



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