FAGGING IN THE BIRD WORLD 41 



whom he can call " stand and deliver." There 

 are several different kinds of skuas, found 

 mostly in the northern seas, but the sea-birds 

 in the tropics do not escape from pirates 

 because there are no skuas there, for there are 

 much worse ones in tropical seas ; in these 

 warm regions lives the frigate-bird, which is 

 a very desperate character indeed. He is 

 only about as big as a fowl in the body, but 

 the body is only a small part of him, as he 

 has a long forked tail, wings each more than a 

 yard long, and a long neck and long hooked 

 bill. His feet are quite small, like a swallow's, 

 for he hardly ever walks, and still less often 

 does he swim almost all his life is spent in 

 the air, where he glides and soars like an eagle, 

 with his wings spread out and motionless. 

 His home is generally on some tropical island, 

 and in such places you always find sea-fowl ; 

 not ordinary gulls, which are rare in the 

 warm seas, but terns or sea-swallows of some 

 sort, and boobies, which are a kind of gannet, 

 very like our own " solan goose." 



The frigate-bird treats these just as the 

 skua here does the gulls, hunting them till 

 they throw up their food ; but he has a 



