FRIGATE-BIRDS. 287 



manner from bank to bank. On reaching the opposite bank, the birds will either 

 waddle on shore to preen and dress their feathers, and afford time for the digestion 

 of their meal, or take flight to another piece of water. In general their periods of 

 feeding and repose are marked out with great regularity. The females attend to 

 the feeding of the young, this being effected by the old birds pressing their beak 

 against their breast and raising the upper mandible, upon which the young help 

 themselves to the fish in the pouch ; and it is doubtless from this action that the 

 fable of the pelican feeding her offspring from the blood of her own breast took 

 its origin. The eggs, from two to three in number, have thick bluish white 

 shells, encrusted with chalky matter, and it is not uncommon to find both eggs 

 and half-fledged young in the same nest. In India, at least, the male and female 

 birds not unfrequently associate in separate flocks. In spite of their bulk and 

 clumsy form, pelicans display extreme activity when on the wing, flying in lines 

 with the neck bent back over the body, and all who have seen flocks of these birds 

 under such circumstances, describe it as one of the most imposing and striking 

 scenes that can be imagined. 



FRIGATE-BIRDS. 

 Family 



The two remaining families of the order each represented by a single genus 

 differ from all the foregoing in being completely pelagic in their habits. The 

 frigate, or man-of-war birds, are characterised by their slender body, short and 

 thick neck, long and powerful hooked beak, of which both mandibles are deflected 

 at the end, the extremely short legs, feathered down to the toes, their elongated 

 and sharply-pointed wings, and the deep, swallow-like forking of the long tail. 

 The feet differ from those of all other members of the order by the webs only 

 extending a short distance up the long and sharply-clawed toes ; and in the wings 

 the first quill is the longest, while the tail has twelve feathers. There is a tract 

 devoid of feathers around the eye and on the throat. The bones are more 

 permeated by air-cavities than in any other bird, and there is a large dilatable 

 air-sac beneath the throat. In the great frigate-bird (Fregatus aquila), which 

 inhabits the warmer regions of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, the 

 plumage of the adult male is brownish black, shot with metallic green and purple 

 on the head, neck, back, breast, and sides, and shaded with grey on the wings. 

 The eye is brown, with the surrounding bare space purplish blue, the beak is light 

 blue at the base, white in the middle, and dark horn-colour at the tip, the throat-sac 

 orange -red in the breeding -season, and the foot carmine -red above and orange 

 beneath. The females differ by their duller tints, and the presence of a larger 

 or smaller pure white area on the breast. The lesser frigate-bird (F. minor) is 

 confined to the Indian and Pacific Oceans. 



The frigate-bird, which has received the title of the Son-of-the-sun, is one 

 of the most swift and active of all pelagic birds, spending much of its time on the 

 wing, often far away from land, and subsisting largely on the fish which it compels 

 terns and other birds to disgorge. In regard to their predatory habits, Mr. H. O. 

 Forbes writes that in the Cocos-Keeling Islands hiding in the lee of the cocoa- 



