ZOOLOGY. 89 
species of sea bird, although, on a careful examination, the 
rocky cliffs were found to abound with the Phaéton ethereus 
in the act of incubation. Those not immediately employed 
in this duty, were unquestionably seeking food at a distance 
in the ocean, but at what period of the day they return to 
their breeding haunts, I have not been able to ascertain. 
The tropic bird makes no nest, but having selected a 
hole, or cavity in the rock, sometimes elevated, and at 
others merely beyond the reach of the waves, invariably 
lays a single egg. Some of these holes are superficial, 
others appear like rabbit burrows in the softer rock, and, 
in a few instances, I have found the entrance barely large 
enough to admit the arm, and too deep to allow of reaching 
the egg with the hand; indeed, on one occasion, I could 
only ascertain the presence of the old bird, by touching it 
with the end of a ramrod, and thus exciting its well-known 
grating cry. | 
When a breeding-place is intruded upon, the sitting bird 
makes no effort to escape, but allows itself to be taken by 
the hand; not, however, without some resistance from its 
strong and sharp-pointed bill: both male and female are 
captured in this manner. 
The egg varies considerably in colour, some specimens 
being of a reddish grey, thickly covered with streaks and 
blotches of Indian red, deepest at the larger end; others 
are of a drab colour, finely speckled with the same deep 
red. The young remain in the nest, or breeding-place, 
until capable of flight: they are at first covered with long 
white down, which gradually disappears as the bird ad- 
vances in growth and acquires its first plumage of white, 
marked on the back and wings with transverse bracket- 
