74 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 150 



and laughing gulls also elude a frigate after a long and agile chase. 

 On the Rio Chiman a frigatebird swooped down at a cormorant that 

 had a fish in its bill, but the latter dived instantly and so saved its 

 meal. However, as I have recorded elsewhere, the frigatebirds in 

 the Gulf of Panama are more often fishermen in their own right, as 

 they swoop regularly over the waves to seize small fishes in their 

 bills, and then swing away without alighting. The birds descend 

 swiftly from a low elevation in the air, glide forward just above the 



Fig. 14.— Magnificent frigatebird, tijereta de mar, Fregata magnificens, male, 

 with inflated throat sac. 



water, then drop the head to snap at fish while the body continues 

 its forward glide, seemingly leaving the head and the long neck 

 behind until it is brought back with its wriggling prey in the bill at 

 the very second when it appears that the bird will be overturned. The 

 bill and sometimes the entire head may be immersed, but neither 

 wing nor body touches the water. Where schools of small fish surface 

 frigatebirds join pelicans and cormorants in voracious attack, re- 

 maining always in the air, while their companions plunge and dive 

 amid the larger fish that harass the unfortunate schools beneath 

 the water. 



