Ornithological and Other Oddities 



it seemed almost unable to fly. I kept it for 

 a few days, when it died, having evidently 

 been brought, by privation or disease, too low 

 for recovery, as seems often to be the case 

 with sea-fowl thus accidentally captured. 



On a voyage to the East one must not expect 

 to meet the most remarkable of all sea-fowl, the 

 albatrosses and frigate-birds, though one of the 

 former has been recorded in the North Atlantic, 

 and the latter have occurred in Indian seas. 

 But another very remarkable bird, the tropic- 

 bird, is pretty certain to meet the voyager in 

 the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and never 

 failed to excite my interest. The species was, 

 no doubt, the short-tailed tropic-bird (Phaetkon 

 indicus), but there is a great general resemblance 

 between the various species, and others may 

 occur besides this. The tropic-bird, as I have 

 seen him, is essentially a bird of mystery. You 

 may find him at any distance from land, even 

 in the Indian Ocean, where sea-birds are few, 

 but you will rarely see more than two together, 

 or even in a day. He flies high, with a con- 

 tinuous rapid beat of the wing, and his white 

 plumage, red bill, and long parrakeet-like tail 

 make him a striking object in the cloudless 

 blue. He seems merely to come to look at 

 the ship, and then resumes his course. I never 



saw him swoop on any prey, and only two or 



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