THE MISSISSIPPI RESERVES 295 



expanse of wing in proportion to the body 

 weight. No other bird of its size seems so abso- 

 lutely at home in the air. Frigate-birds — as 

 they are also called — hardly ever light on the 

 water, yet they are sometimes seen in mid- 

 ocean. But they like to live in companies, 

 near some coast. They have very long tails, 

 usually carried closed, looking like a marlin- 

 spike, but at times open, like a great pair of 

 scissors, in the course of their indescribably 

 graceful aerial evolutions. We saw them soar- 

 ing for hours at a time, sometimes to all seeming 

 absolutely motionless as they faced the wind. 

 They sometimes caught fish for themselves, 

 just rippling the water to seize surface swimmers, 

 or pouncing with startling speed on any fish 

 which for a moment leaped into the air to avoid 

 another shape of ravenous death below. If 

 the frigate-bird caught the fish transversely, it 

 rose, dropped its prey, and seized it again by 

 the head before it struck the water. But it 

 also obtained its food in less honorable fashion 

 — by robbing other birds. The pelicans were 

 plundered by all their fish-eating neighbors, 

 even the big terns; but the man-of-war bird 

 robbed the robbers. We saw three chase a 

 royal tern, a very strong flier; the tern towered, 

 ascending so high we could hardly see it, but 



