FRIGATE-BIRD. 427 



digested.* Nor have I ever seen it attack the 

 Booby, to make it disgorge, though the fishermen 

 of Jamaica are famihar with this habit. Dr. Cham- 

 berlaine, who apparently describes from observation, 

 says of the Frigate, " He is ahnost always a constant 

 attendant upon our fishermen, when pursuing their 

 vocation on the sand-banks in Kingston Harbour, or 

 near the Palisados. Over their heads it takes its 

 aerial stand, and watches their motions with a 

 patience and perseverance the most exemplary. It 

 is upon these occasions that the Pelicans, the Gulls, 

 and other sea-birds become its associates and com- 

 panions. These are also found watching with 

 equal eagerness and anxiety the issue of the fisher- 

 men's progress, attracted to the spot by the sea 

 of living objects immediately beneath them. 



" And then it is, when these men are making their 

 last haul, and the finny tribe are fluttering and pant- 

 ing for life, that this voracious bird exhibits his 

 fierce and pugnacious propensities. His hungry 

 companions have scarcely secured their prey by the 

 side of the fishermen's canoes, when with the light- 

 ning's dart, they are pounced upon with such violence, 

 that, to escape its rapacious assaults, they readily in 

 turn yield their hard-earned booty to this formidable 



* An intelligent fisherman, who is in the habit of trading about the 

 coast, and to Cuba, asserts that he has often seen the Frigates fishing far 

 out at sea ; such large fishes as Bonito, that leap out of water, being 

 their prey ; which they catch with the foot, plunging down on them, 

 and then mounting, deliver the booty to the mouth like a Parrot. I 

 feel it right to repeat this statement, though I think it improbable, from 

 the weakness of the foot. He adds that they breed in great numbers 

 on the Pedro Kays, laying on the bare rocks. 



