244 ZOOLOGY. 



away the pieces of coloured cloth fixed in the vane. 

 One individual, thus occupied over the Tuscan, was 

 taken by hand by the man at the mast-head. The look- 

 out at the time was kept by a landsman, remarkably tall 

 and slender, and his mess- mates would never believe 

 but that the poor bird, accustomed to the figure of a 

 sailor, had mistaken him for a spare spar, and thus 

 fallen a victim to a want of discernment. 



Unable to seek their prey in the water, the sea- 

 hawks limit their depredations to fishes that leap, or 

 flying-fish, when, disturbed by the passage of a ship, or 

 pursued by albacore and bonita, they rise in the air to 

 seek that security which the water denies them. The 

 larger predaceous fish are in this manner of essential 

 service to the frigate-bird ; the latter usually taking the 

 prey which the former have startled but failed to secure. 

 When the ocean is turbulent these birds fare sump- 

 tuously every day. We have seen one individual take 

 three flying-fish in the course of a few minutes ; and more 

 than that number was rejected from the stomach of 

 another example, which we captured. When the sea is 

 calm their fishing is less successful, and it is then that they 

 resort to that peculiar system of plunder for which the 

 species is so remarkable, namely, attacking other sea- 

 fowl, as boobies or tropic-birds, (whose power of diving 

 enables them to obtain food at all times,) and com- 

 pelling them, by repeated blows, to disgorge the fish they 

 have swallowed, and which when ejected, the frigate- 

 bird seizes with great dexterity before it falls into the 

 sea. In the course of their own fishing, also, should the 

 fish they have seized be placed awkwardly in their 

 beak, they do not scruple to drop it, trusting to their 

 power of again pouncing upon it, and grasping it in 

 a more favourable position, before it reaches the water. 



