The Pirate 



393 



hatching and nursing birds, as if they had contracted 

 themselves out of any right to occupy the same space. 

 They certainly did nothing towards the maintenance 

 of the families, being apparently fully occupied in 

 providing for their own clamorous needs. The mother 

 birds had their domestic cares to attend to as well as 

 the providing, which led me to think more than scorn- 

 fully of the male Booby as regarded his affections, 

 especially comparing him with the deep-sea birds of 

 my acquaintance, but rather highly as regarded his 

 iniquitous cunning, which certainly did not justify 

 his contemptuous name. But there was one recurring 

 circumstance which I continually noted, about which 

 I have some trouble. It does not appear very clear 

 whether I should mention it here or in a later article, 

 but I do not see how I am to do the Booby full justice 

 unless I make some allusion to it at present, and so I 

 fear I must do so even at the peril of repeating myself 

 later on. I noticed repeatedly that as the mother 

 birds were returning at full speed to their nests with 

 a load of food (I say * nests ', although, as I have noted, 

 the eggs and young ones just lay on the open sand), 

 they often evinced signs of great alarm, and dodged 

 about at full speed, sometimes rushing right out to 

 sea again. 



The reason was evident. High above the busy 

 birds fishing there hovered black wide-winged birds, 

 whose province it was apparently to live upon the 

 labours of others. And when they saw a homeward- 

 bound bird flapping heavily towards the land, one of 

 them would by easy stages, yet with amazing celerity, 

 descend from his lofty plane, drawing nearer and 

 nearer to the labouring Booby like a kestrel descending 

 upon a pigeon, but in far more leisurely fashion, as 

 if perfectly confident of success. 



