304 THE TROPICAL OCEAN 



the weaker sea-birds in order to make them disgorge their 

 prey. 



" He is almost always a constant attendant upon our fisher- 

 men," says Dr. Chamberlain,* "when pursuing their vocation 



on the sand-banks in Kingston Har- 

 bour, or near the Palisados. Over 

 their heads it takes its aerial stand, 

 and watches their motions with a 

 patience and a perseverance the 

 most exemplary. It is upon these 

 occasions that the pelicans, the 

 gulls, and other sea-birds become 

 its associates and companions. 

 These are also found watching with equal eagerness and 

 anxiety the issue of the fishermen's progress, attracted to 

 the spot by the sea of living objects immediately beneath 

 them. And then it is, when these men are making their last 

 haul, and the finny tribes are fluttering and panting for life, that 

 this voracious bird exhibits his fierce propensities. His hungry 

 companions have scarcely secured their prey by the side of the 

 fishermen's canoes, when, with the lightning's dart, they are 

 pounced upon with such violence, that to escape its rapacious 

 assaults they readily, in turn, yield their hard-earned booty to 

 this formidable opponent. The lightness of its trunk, the short 

 torso and vast spread of wing, together with its long slender 

 and forked tail, all conspire to give it a superiority over its tribe, 

 not only in length and rapidity of flight, but also in the power 

 of maintaining itself, on outspread pinions, in the regions of its 

 aerial habitations amidst the clouds; where, at times, so lofty 

 are its soarings, that its figure becomes almost invisible to the 

 spectator in this nether world." 



The beautiful tropic birds, whose name implies the limit of 

 their abode — for they are seldom seen but a few degrees south 

 or north of either tropic — hover at such .a distance from the 

 nearest land, that it is still an enigma where they pass the 

 night — whether they sleep upon the waters, or whether their 

 extraordinary length of wing bears them to some isolated rock. 

 Nothing can be more graceful than their flight. They glide 



* " Jamaica Almanac," 1843. 



