FRIG A TE-BIRD 293 



Australia, Avhile the rest are natives of various islands from Lom- 

 bock to New Caledonia. With their stout bill, mostly surmounted 

 by a horny excrescence, and their head and 

 neck frequently bare of feathers and black, 

 these birds seem to be the most abnormal ^^ 

 forms of the Family ^leliphagida.',. The com- 

 monest species in Australia, which is found 

 from Rockingham Bay to Victoria, is, accord- (After Swainson ) 



ing to Gould {Handb. B. Austral, i. p. 546), 



generally dispersed, and may be seen perching on the top of high 

 trees, or clinging to their branches in every variety of attitude, 

 being also of powerful flight, and attacking boldly every predatory 

 bird that may approach. Its loud cries have given it thq additional 

 names of "Poor Soldier," "Pimlico," and "Four-o'clock," Avhich 

 words they are thought to resemble, while its naked head and 

 neck have also suggested those of " Monk " and " Leather-head." 

 The other species seem to have similar habits, and the plumage of 

 all is of an almost uniform drab colour, though the young exhibit 

 more or less of a yellow tinge on some parts of it. Sevei'al of 

 them, however, have the head feathered. 



FRIGATE-BIRD, the name apparently first printed by Albin 

 in 1739-40 {Nat. Hist. B. iii. p. 75), but now commonly given by 

 our sailors, on account of the swiftness of its flight, its habit of 

 cruising about near other species and of daringly pursuing them, to 

 a large Sea-bird ^ — the Frerjata aquila of most ornithologists — the 

 Frigate of French and the RaUhorcado of Spanish mariners. It was 

 placed by Linngeus in the genus Pelecaims, and its assignment to 

 the Family Pelecanidse, was never doubted until Prof. Mivart declared 

 {Trans. Zool. Soc. x. p. 364) that, as regards the postcranial part of 

 its axial skeleton, he cannot detect sufficiently good characters to 

 unite it with that Family in the group named by the elder Brandt c 

 Steganopodes. There seems to be no ground for disputing this 

 decision so far as sepax'ating the genus Fregata from the Felecanidx 

 goes ; but systematists will probably pause before they proceed 

 to abolish the Steganopodes, and no doubt the Frigate -Birds 

 form a distinct Family, FrcgatidiV, in that gi'oup. In one very 

 remarkable way the osteology of Fregata, differs from that of all 

 other birds known. The furcula coalesces firmly at its symphysis 

 with the carina of the sternum, and also with the coracoids at the 

 upper extremity of each of its rami, the anterior end of each cora- 

 coid coalescing also with the proximal end of the scapula. Thus 

 the only articulations in the Avhole sternal apparatus are where the 



1 " Man-of-war-Bird " is also sometimes applied to it, and though an older it 

 is a less distinctive name, some of the larger kinds of Albatros being so called, 

 while, in books at least, it has generally passed out of use. 



