216 



BAHAMA BIRD-LIFE 



hatched from the last laid egg lived ; but in one instance a 

 nest was observed containing a lately hatched dead young 

 and an egg with an embryo. 



The case is unique among birds, as far as I am aware, 

 but that the data 

 on Cay Verde do 

 not reveal an ex 



Boobies in Flight 



ceptional condition 

 is apparently prov- 

 en by the observa- 

 tions of Walter K. 

 Fisher* in the 

 Leeward Islands 

 of the Hawaiian 

 group where both Sula cyanops and 8. leucogastra were 

 found to lay two eggs and rear but one young. 



The young Booby is born naked and since exposure to 

 the sun before the downy plumage is developed would re- 

 sult fatally, it is constantly brooded, one parent at once re- 

 placing the other when the brooding bird is relieved. Brood- 

 ing continues even when the white down is well developed ; 

 the young bird is then too large to be wholly covered by the 

 parent, and lies flat on the ground, the head exposed, the 

 eyes closed, apparently dead. This relaxed attitude is also 

 taken by young which are not sheltered by the parent and 

 we were not a little surprised on several occasions, when 

 about to examine an evidently dead bird to have it jump up 



* Birds of Laysan and the Leeward Islands, Hawaiian Group, U. S. F'sb Comm. 

 Bull.19, 03, pp. 28-30 



