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and highest part of Booby Kay, a colony of about two hundred 

 pairs was breeding. The nests here were on the bare rock, and 

 closely grouped together ; the whole not occupying a space more 

 ■ than forty feet square. There were no boobies amongst them, 

 though thousands were breeding on the kay. The largest breed- 

 ing-place visited by me is situated on Seal Island, one of the 

 Ragged Island Kays, and is five or six acres in extent. The 

 nests, thickly crowded together, were placed on the tops of the 

 prickly-pear, which covered the ground with an almost impene- 

 trable thicket. On the 8th of April, the young were hatched in 

 half of the nests, the largest about one third grown ; the other 

 nests contained eggs more or less hatched ; out of many hundreds, 

 I only procured seven that were freshly laid. I have visited the 

 breeding-places of many sea-birds before, and some well worth 

 the trouble, but none so interesting to me as this. It was a 

 most singular spectacle ; thousands and thousands of these great 

 and ordinarily wild birds covered the whole surface of the 

 prickly-pears as they sat on their nests, or darkened the air as 

 they hovered over them, so tame that they would hardly move on 

 being touched ; indeed, the specimens that I procured were all taken 

 alive, with my own hands. When I had penetrated as far among 

 them as possible, I fired my gun ; the whole colony rose at once, 

 and the noise made by their long and powerful wings striking 

 against each other was almost deafening. In a moment they com- 

 menced settling upon their nests, and were soon as quiet as be- 

 fore. Incubation is carried on by both male and female. The 

 old ones feed the young at first by regurgitation. The food consists 

 of the same species of fish as the booby's, and is principally de- 

 rived from that bird, which they rob as the bald eagle does the 

 fish-hawk. Why the booby should submit to this, being much 

 more powerful, and armed with a most formidable bill, is strange. 

 I have watched these birds for hours, while flying, and every now 

 and then hovering over the surface of the water, but never saw 

 them catch a fish. The popular idea at the Bahamas is, that the 

 fish are stupefied by the excrement of this bird. If there is any 

 foundation for this idea, I presume it is that the fish are attracted 

 by it ; though the abundance of fish is such, that one would think 

 it hardly worth while to attract them in any way. The young 

 are at first nearly naked, then covered with white down, and by 



