Miscellaneous. 243 



" It was really no small comfort to be able to get specimens of 

 this beautiful bird without betraying their confidence by shooting 

 them from the schooner. Small-brained as thej^ are, they are gifted 

 with an extraordinary amount of inquisitiveness, particularly in the 

 early morning. As we bowl along before the flashing trade-wind, 

 we hear a few harsh screams, and up come a pair of ' bosens ' with 

 their bright scarlet tail-feathers glowing in the morning sun. They 

 make two or three sweeps around us, evidently comparing notes, 

 and then away into the deep blue, on their own private aifairs. 

 They fi.sh generally like the tern, to whom I suspect they are 

 cousins german ; but they have a way sometimes of hovering per- 

 pendicularly, with the bill pressed against the breast, that I have 

 never observed but in one other bird, the black-and-white kingfisher 

 of the Nile. When the ' bosen ' has sighted his prey in this posi- 

 tion, he turns over in the deftest manner, and goes down straight as 

 a gannet, up to his neck, no further, and remounts for a fresh hover. 

 I have never had the good fortune to see the white-tailed phaeton 

 fishing, often as I have looked for him ; indeed I have rarely met 

 him out at sea at all. The finest I have seen were hanging about 

 the high cliffs of the Society Islands ; and I do not exaggerate when 

 I state that I have seen more than one with a glorious waving 

 white tail-feather, two good feet long, though the bird itself was 

 not much larger than a black-headed gull. What they do with their 

 tails when they feed passed my comprehension. 



" Not only did we find fuU-groAvn tropic birds, but we found their 

 eggs and young, — the former about the size of a hen's egg, prettily 

 splashed with reddish brown, laid on the bare sand, under a bush ; 

 the latter reaUy handsome creatures, about the size of a herring- 

 gull, beautifully marked with black and white (like a falcon). The 

 bill at this stage of their existence is black, not red. When you 

 find your young friend under a bush, he is ensconced in a small 

 basin of coral- dust, without any nest at all, and his surroundings 

 show him to be a cleanly thing. When you come upon him sud- 

 denly, he squalls and croaks and wabbles about, and is as discon- 

 certed as a warm city man when you try to drive a new idea into 

 him unconnected with money. But he sticks stoutly to his dusty 

 cradle, and never attempts to escape, saying plainly enough, ' My 

 mother told me to stop here till she brought me my supper; and here 

 I am going to stay.' " — South-Sea Bubbles, p. 143. 



Fish-nest in the Seaiveed of the Sargasso-Sea. Extracts from a letter 

 from Prof. Agassiz to Prof. Peikce, Superintendent, United States 

 Coast Survey, dated ' Hassler' Expedition, St. Thomas, December 

 15, 1871. 



* * * * The most interesting discovery of the voyage thus far, is 

 the finding of a nest built by a fish, floating on the broad ocean with 

 its live freight. On the 13th of the month, Mr. Mansfield, one of 

 the officers of the ' Hassler,' brought me a ball of gulf-weed which he 

 had iust picked up, and which excited my curiosity to the utmost, 



17* 



