Vol. XXXI II 



1915 



Murphy, Birds of Trinidad Islet. 341 



Man-o'war Birds are notorious pirates in their feeding habits, but 

 I saw a troop of the smaller species (Fregata arid) fishing for them- 

 selves. Half a dozen of them hovered in a row over a school of 

 small surface fish, and faced in a direction opposite to that in which 

 the fish were moving. While the birds poised close over the water 

 they beat their big wings slowly. Then at the right moment they 

 struck downward, swinging their long bills like scimitars back 

 under their bodies, the hooked tip seizing a fish from the rear. 

 They seemed to catch three or four a minute, and yet made no 

 commotion among the moving school of their victims. One 

 Man-o'-war Bird was caught on a fishhook from the Daisy. 



Trinidad's endemic petrels, of the genus JEstrelata, were as 

 numberless as the Noddies. Arminjon's Petrel, which was nidifi- 

 cating or perhaps only resting, in water-worn cells of the rock, made 

 up the bulk of these birds. They frequently quarreled with one 

 another in air, chattering not unlike terns. They were perfectly 

 fearless, but disinterested. Specimens shot had not long since 

 bred, for the abdomens were bare. The black species, M. trinitatis, 

 seemed somewhat less common. During the forenoon I had shot 

 one of the latter with the right barrel of my gun, in the vicinity of 

 two small rocks near the Ninepin, when a very white petrel flew 

 swiftly toward us from the sea. Intuitively, in that momentary 

 glimpse, I recognized a bird with which I was not familiar. A 

 fortunate, long shot, straight up from the shoulder, brought it 

 hurtling to the water, and we reached it sooner than the sharks. 

 It proved to be a species new to science, more beautiful than all its 

 congeners, clad in a black-flecked cloak like ermine. I have named 

 it Mstrelata chionophara, the Snowy-mantled Petrel. 



All the birds that we saw were, of course, sea birds — none others 

 have been found at Trinidad. But through the whole day, while 

 our little boat skirted the seething edge of ocean, I gazed longingly 

 at the tree-ferns far above, and could not help thinking that there 

 may have been unknown land birds there, among the spires of the 

 fascinating, unattainable mountains. 



