232 FULLY WEB-FOOTED BIRDS 



from land. Its beak is long, hooked at the end, and really 

 very strong, but its legs are so short and stumpy they seem 

 to be deformed. Under the throat there is a patch of skin 

 quite devoid of feathers, which really is a sort of air-sac. 



I once found the roosting-place of a colony of about forty 

 of these birds, on the top of a perpendicular cliff seventy -five 

 feet high on the seaward side of an island at the northwestern 

 point of Trinidad. The birds came there regularly every 

 night, to roost in some small dead trees that almost overhung 

 the precipices. They were not nesting at that time, however, 

 and were so very wakeful that even though I went to their 

 roost before daylight, I did not succeed in killing even one 

 bird. 



This bird inhabits the warm oceans of the Old World, as 

 well as the New, and Mr. H. O. Forbes states that in the Cocos- 

 Keeling Islands they are regular pirates, and gain their live- 

 lihood by remaining inactive, and forcing honest flsherfolk, 

 like the gannets, and noddy terns, to disgorge for their lazy 

 benefit the fish they bring home from distant fishing-grounds. 



Mr. R. J. Beck found Frigate Birds nesting in the Gala- 

 pagos Archipelago, which were so tame and unsuspicious that 

 he was able to approach quite near, and make the photograph 

 which is reproduced on the preceding page. 



