BOOBY. 421 



"The Booby has an uncontrollable predilection 

 for elevated spots as perching places. If a single 

 stone be higher than others in the yard, the Booby's 

 eye perceives it, and there he takes up his station, 

 and stands, when he has fed, and is satisfied. If 

 a log or a bundle of wood lie about, he mounts 

 it, and perches upon it to sun himself, extending 

 his wings over his tail, and erecting his dorsal 

 feathers for the admission of the genial beams of 

 morning. He roosts upon similar vantage spots, 

 generally on the tops of the triangular coops in 

 which are kept our fattening poultry. He has 

 great prehensile power with his foot; and his 

 serrated middle-toe is frequently applied to scratch 

 the naked skin about his eyes and face. Our 

 birds are fonder of flesh meats, such as beef and 

 pork, than of fish. They dislike fat, and gene- 

 rally reject it, if it be given separately from the 

 lean. They never drink, and are just as re- 

 gardless of the water about the yard, as if they 

 had been as unadapted for it, as hens and turkeys." * 



* The following note I received from my friend, since the above was 

 prepared for the press. " My male Booby died the other day. I found 

 animalcules in the liver. Its anatomy exhibited, in a remarkably inte- 

 resting manner, the fine adaptation for the purposes of buoyancy, de- 

 tailed by Professor Owen in the dissection of the kindred Gannet. The 

 muscles showed the air-vessels interspersed among them, in a manner 

 altogether surprising. They had the appearance, as he expresses it, 

 of being dissected. The bird, in the act of expiring, had almost en- 

 tirely discharged the air from about the chest ; but very considera- 

 ble inflation still subsisted in the thighs. The large femoral mus- 

 cle might y be said to be almost entirely detached from the enveloping 

 integument. The septa of the cells seemed alone to attach it to the 

 adjacent flesh. There was no adhesion, but along one of its edges." 



