Mr. 0. Salvin on the Sea-birds of British Honduras. 375 



mostly deserted, all the young ones of those still inhabited being 

 able to run out along the branches and make their escape. The 

 nests were composed entirely of sticks, and placed near the end 

 of a horizontal bough. With an eye to dinner, we paddled 

 quietly on, while Joe, spear in hand, kept a sharp look-out for 

 fish, a favourite lurking-place for some species being the tangled 

 roots of the mangroves. The Man-of-war Birds, as well as the 

 Gaulins, showed preference for the leeward side, the former 

 occupying the highest mangroves on the island. Old nests 

 and decayed boughs, accumulated on the oozing mud, had made 

 a patch of ground just under where the nests were. For this we 

 paddled, and, on landing, shot four old birds — two adult males 

 in dark metallic chocolate-brown plumage, and two with white 

 underneath, the adult females; no white-headed immature birds 

 were to be seen. These secured and stowed away in the dorey, 

 we began to scale the trees. Joe climbed the first, and found an 

 egg, of which I entreated him to take all possible care. " Treat 

 him kind,^' shouted I. "Don^t be afraid, massa,'^ replied Joe; 

 but Master Joe, on reaching the bottom of the tree, managed to 

 knock the egg against a branch and broke it to bits. " Quite 

 rotten, sar," says Joe, by way of apology. Gladly would I have 

 had a rotten egg to blow, or a chipping shell ! But, like the spilt 

 milk, there was no help for it ; so, after trying to impress more 

 care on the delinquent Joe, I climbed the next tree myself. It 

 was a curious sight, on thrusting one's head out of the top of a 

 tree, to watch the inhabitants around. Three-fourths of the nests 

 had young birds in them, of various ages: the more advanced were 

 commencing to shoot their scapular feathers ; others, younger, 

 looked like puff-balls of pure white ; while those which had just 

 escaped from the shell were lying helplessly, as young birds do, 

 on the frail structure of sticks composing their nests. So slight 

 were these, that the young in their earliest infancy must have a 

 perilous time of it. The youngest were guarded by one of the 

 parent-birds, which balanced itself on the edge of the nest. From 

 the unhatched eggs the birds could hardly be prevailed upon to 

 stir. I have several times noticed this reluctance on the part of 

 birds building open nests to leave their eggs exposed to the 

 direct rays of the tropical sun, whereas on cloudy days the same 



