■^fi Notes on .Jungle and Other Wild Life. 



common experience that it is hardly worth mentioning were it 

 not for the questions of bird psychology that such incidents often 

 involve. (Jn our way from Halifax to Bermuda and when 

 some four hundred miles from the nearest land, a Logger-head 

 Shrike flew on board. Accompanying us, from the Nova 

 Scotian coast, were two acceptable forms of Butcher Bird food — 

 a couple of EngHsh Sparrow^s and several crates of cabbages 

 (with their usual families of cabbage-worms) securely roped to 

 uprights on the forward deck. The Shrike (what a beautifully 

 set-up and fearless brigand was he ! ) first dined off the sparrows 

 and then, after a day or two, gave his attention to the cabbages. 

 He must have improved the vegetables greatly, and I could not 

 resist the temptation to advise the consignee at Port namilton 

 that he should advertise arrival of a special lot of "bird-picked " 

 vegetables. 



The Shrike remained with us for several days. It seemed 

 to some of us that he stayed until the cabbage grubs were 

 exhausted, and then, despising the dangers — if there were any 

 for him — of the waste of waters, flew away. My friend. Dr. 

 Chas. Richmond, of Washington, a widely known authority on 

 the subject, believes that birds have no conception of a moving- 

 ship as such, but regard it as part of the land; and he writes me 

 that probably this Lanius acted just as any accidental visitor 

 would on any isolated rock in the Atlantic, and was not bothered 

 to ask why the food supply was sufificient when on other islets 

 he had found it exceedingly scarce. 



Another bird especially attracted by ships is known to 

 sailors as the Boatswain Bird. We were fortunate in having 

 or.e \\\ih us on this trip — appropriately introduced to me by the 

 functionary whose name he bore. The Tropic Bird — to give 

 him his correct designation — has the two middle feathers of his 

 tail so arranged (and projecting) that they are said to resemble 

 a marline-spike, and so to suggest the officer just mentioned. 

 The verv beautiful individual that came aboard the Cliaudiere 

 was Phacthon (because his whole life is spent in following the 

 chariot of the simDAmericanus. At least that was his name 

 the last time I looked him up; and we have frequent re-christen- 

 ings in systematic ornithology. He had webbed feet, some 

 black markings on the face and wings, but his general colouring 



