52 Wonders of the Bird World 



erected for them near the beach. The natives procure the 

 young birds and tie them by the leg and feed them until 

 they are tame. Afterwards they let them loose, and they 

 go out to sea to get their food, and return to their perches 

 in the villages at intervals. The statements recently 

 made by an adventurous traveller in Northern Australia, 

 that he made tin discs from the bottom of disused milk- 

 tins, scrawled on them in different languages the letters 

 which announced his derelict condition on a desert island, 

 and then tied the discs to the necks of Pelicans, which 

 were in hundreds upon the latter, can scarcely be credited ; 

 but Mr. Whitmee informed the writer that a post had 

 been established on the Ellice Islands by some of the 

 missionaries, and that the Frigate Birds were the postmen. 

 Like our own Carrier Pigeons, they were used to take letters 

 from one island to another, and he himself had more than 

 once seen letters arrive in a quill which had been tied to 

 the birds. 



The old male of the Frigate Bird has a red pouch, which 

 it is able to distend to an enormous size. The bird, figured 

 in our sketch (p. 24), was presented to the Natural 

 History Museum by Captain Milner, who brought it home 

 in the freezing chamber of his vessel. Much has been 

 written about the buoyancy of the Frigate Bird's flight, and 

 this can easily be believed, for the body appears to be full 

 of air-cells. When the above specimen arrived at the 

 Museum, it was to all intents and purposes as if it had 

 been freshly shot, and by inserting a quill down the throat, 

 we were able to inflate the whole skin of the bird, and 

 there was scarcely a part which was not distended with air 

 between the skin and the actual body. 



A very remarkable instance of a species which can fly 

 when it is young, but loses the power of flight when adult, 

 is seen in the Steamer-Duck (Tachyeres cinereus] of the 

 Straits of Magellan. Mention of this Duck occurs in the 



