go Bird - Lore 



a great flying spear-head they strike the water and disappear in the jet of 

 foam which spurts upward as they hit the surface. It is a more thrilling, reckless 

 performance than even the plunge of the Fish Hawk. The dive of a single 

 Booby, like that of the Hawk, is always a notable exhibition of skill, strength, 

 and perfection of the winged fisherman's art. Only a person rarely gifted in the 

 use of words could adequately describe it. How, then, can one hope to paint 

 a pen-picture of a thousand Boobies diving, of a skyful of Boobies which, in 

 endless streams, poured downward into the sea? It was a curtain of darts, a 

 barrage of birds. The water below became a mass of foam from which, if one 

 watched closely, hundreds of dark forms took wing at a low angle to return to 

 the animated throng above, and dive again; or, their hunger satisfied, they 

 filed away with thousands of others to some distant resting-place. It is difficult 

 to understand why the birds emerging from the water are not at times impaled 

 by their plunging comrades, and how the Cormorants, always fishing on or near 

 the surface, escape. But the most amazing phenomenon in all this amazing 

 scene was the action of flocks of Boobies of five hundred to a thousand birds, 

 which, in more or less compact formation, were hurrying to join one of the 

 Booby squalls which darkened the air over the fishing-grounds. If, unexpect- 

 edly, they chanced to fly over a school of fish, instantly, and as one individual, 

 every Booby in the flock plunged downward and in a twinkling the air which 

 had been filled with rapidly flying birds was left without a feather! This 

 spectacle, the most surprising evolution I have ever seen in bird-life, was wit- 

 nessed repeatedly during the day. 



We left Salaverry late in the afternoon, when the setting sun revealed an 

 apparently endless succession of mountain ranges leading to the far-distant 

 Andes, and seemed to light each with a different color — gray, pink, brown, or 

 purple — and the birds were still waging active warfare against the inhabitants 

 of the waters. But I could look at them no longer without experiencing a feeling 

 of confusion and dizziness. For the first time in my life I had seen too many 

 birds in one day ! 



November 19, off Eten, the first Albatross, a bird of the Yellow-nosed 

 group, was seen; the following day a Skua was observed, and thereafter a few 

 individuals of these species were seen daily. Diving Petrels and Inca Terns were 

 not noted until we entered Lima Harbor on November 21. 



It is, of course, well known that the combination of fish, fish-eating birds 

 (transformers, they might almost be called), islands on which the birds may 

 nest in security, and a rainless climate has resulted in the production of the 

 guano deposits which have constituted one of the principal commercial assets 

 of Peru. The Incas, who used guano to fertilize the areas they irrigated for 

 agricultural purposes on the coast of Peru, are said to have imposed the penalty 

 of death on anyone who killed a guano-producing bird ; and the existing Peru- 

 vian Government rigidly protects them. 



The original supply of guano has long since been removed and the industry 



