Mr. 0. Salvin on the Sea-birds of British Honduras. 383 



able enough, but doubtless has its drawbacks. Fancy undergoing 

 voluntarily a Robinson-Crusoe life for years on an island only 

 large enough to hold yourself and your cocoa-nuts ! Yet it 

 suits a tolerably well-to-do negro admirably ; he has plenty of 

 opportunity " to cock up his toes, to make the time pass." But 

 I must not be hard upon the inhabitants of Middle Cay ; if 

 contentment is a blessing, they were blessed, and they made 

 Mr. E,. and myself as comfortable as they could the few days we 

 passed there. Bald-pate Pigeons are common on this Cay, and 

 every evening about sunset I used to bag a few, those not wanted 

 for the collection going as a contribution to the larder. A single 

 Fern {Acrostichumaureum) grows on this Cay, the common species 

 of all the lowland swamps of the West Indies. I do not know 

 how many brothers Sam had, in addition to Joe : his big brother 

 Bill, with a bigger schooner than the ' Mary Ann,' was at the 

 Cay, calling for cocoa-nuts. He too worked like Sam with a 

 prospect of a Cay and cocoa-nuts before him. Having to com- 

 plete his cargo at South-west-of-all Cay, I went with him to visit 

 the colony of Noddies. The distance was short, and all inside the 

 reef. I was prepared to see a good many birds, but nothing 

 approaching the numbers that are there crowded on one small 

 island. Noddies everywhere : Noddies at sea and fishing in the 

 shallows ; Noddies in the cocoa-nuts and mangroves ; Noddies 

 basking by scores on the sands, and flying through the trees by 

 hundreds. There must have been many thousands in all ; and 

 what must the numbers have been when the Sooty Terns flocked 

 to the same island in such numbers that their eggs might be 

 gathered by the basketful ? I had hardly put my foot ashore 

 when I discovered there were two species of Anoiis on the island, 

 the second species being A. tenuirostris, and easily recognized. 

 Instead of the cawing note of the common species, the " Piccary 

 Noddy," as the Creoles call it, has a more Tern-like cry, whence, 

 perhaps, its name. The nest of the Noddy is made of sticks — a 

 large loose structure heaped together at the top of a cocoa-nut 

 tree, or on the outer branches of a mangrove. That of the 

 " Piccary Noddy " is small and compact, made of slender twigs, 

 seaweed, and bits of grass, and glued together in every available 

 fork and on every horizontal branch. 



