NEW HABITAT GROUPS 61 



To view the scene of the first of these new groups we must make the 

 long journey to the Bahamas and there search out Cay ^''erde. This is 

 a small coral islet with no fresh water, and with the dark blue of great 

 sea depths sharply separated from the light water of its shallow banks. 

 The islet is of peculiar interest since it lies in the line of migration, and 

 being the only landing place in a large expanse of water, receives calls 

 from many migrating birds. Two species, the Booby and the Man o' 

 War bird, nest there in large numbers in March, the Boobies on the 

 ground, the ]Man o' War birds in the sea grape and prickly pear cactus 

 of the islet. Boobies are particularly tame when on the nests. This is 

 due in part to the fact that they have had no opportunity to learn fear of 

 man, but in addition it probably results from the strength of their 

 parental instinct, which so controls their fear that they do not leave their 

 nests when an intruder walks among them and makes intimate acquain- 

 tance with family after family. 



The male ]\Ian o' War bird is ornamented with a large throat-pouch 

 of vivid red, which, inflated like a toy balloon, makes the bird conspicu- 

 ous whatever its environment. This ornamentation, actually disad- 

 vantageous in the struggle for existence, furnishes an illustration for 

 Darwin's Sexual Selection theory. To-day, all recognize the matter 

 of ornamentation among animals as one of the most difficult of biological 

 problems, whether tentatively accounting for it on this theory of the 

 female's choice of the most attractive, or as a direct physiological and 

 structural result of the male's excessive energy, or by yet other theories. 



If we move to the second of the new groups, we are transported 

 thousands of miles across the continent and north to the California- 

 Oregon boundary line, where the shallow water of Klamath Lake con- 

 tains many islands of rushes and is surrounded by treeless hills with Mt. 

 Shasta in the distance. It is a picturesque place, but much of the region 

 will be drained by a government reclamation project and converted into 

 orchards and fields of alfalfa. The Klamath Lake group shows Cormo- 

 rants and Gulls, also Caspian Terns; but interest centers in the White 

 Pelicans, immense birds with wing expanse of from eight to nine feet. 

 There are interesting studies of flying Pelicans, and in the foreground 

 one young bird is illustrating its amusing method of fishing down its 

 parent's throat. One adult shows the bill-knob of the nuptial season. 

 It will be a matter of regret if the demands of civilization push this bird 

 to extinction. Unlike many birds, to which advance in civilization 



