CHAPTER XXVI 

 BOOBIES AND PENGUINS 



UNLIKE any of the other birds ot which I have 

 been writing, the subjects of the present chapter 

 are really not pelagic, that is, they are birds which 

 must find a rest for the soles of their feet upon some- 

 thing hard every night, preferably at their proper homes, 

 although that is sometimes impossible. An almost in- 

 vidious selection has now to be made, but one entirely 

 necessary, since the varieties of such birds are very 

 numerous. And I have endeavoured to surmount the 

 difficulty by only taking those that are fairly famihar 

 to sailors in out-of-the-way parts of the ocean, and 

 almost unknown to the majority of landsfolk. 



First in my mind comes the Booby, which is a 

 species of gannet, but varying in several important 

 particulars from the pretty, well-known gannets of 

 our own coasts. It has a reputation for stupidity 

 which I feel is hardly deserved, and is really only given 

 upon very slight grounds. But in consequence of this 

 reputation it has obtained this somewhat opprobrious 

 name, first by the Spanish seamen who, trading in 

 the Gulf of Mexico, made its acquaintance, and con- 

 ceiving but a low idea of its intelligence called it ' Bobo * 

 or Stupid ; hence our word Booby, both words deriving 

 from the same root. 



Perhaps the sole reason for the idea of the poor 



