Tropic-birds 



123 



which they capture by dashing perpendicularly into the water after the manner 

 of the Terns. The Tropic-birds make no nest or but a slight one and deposit 

 their single egg in holes or crevices in rocks, occasionally in a hollow tree or on 

 the bare sand. The egg is about 2.10 x 1.55 inches, "dilute claret-brown or 

 whitish speckled, sprinkled, spotted, or blotched with deep claret-brown." The 

 birds during incubation sit closely and fearlessly, allowing themselves to be 

 pushed aside or taken in the hand with no more of protest than a sharp stroke 

 with the bill or a hoarse cry; both sexes take part in incubation. 



Perhaps the best-known species is the Red-billed Tropic-bird (P. athereus) 

 of the tropical portions of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, coming north on the 

 Pacific coast to Lower California, and accidentally as far north as the Newfound- 

 land Banks on the Atlantic side. It is nearly forty inches in length, with the 



FIG. 36. Yellow-billed Tropic-bird, Phaeton americanus. 



central tail-feathers about twenty-six inches long. The bright coral-red bill, 

 the satin white plumage, the elongated tail-feathers, which are snow-white with 

 black shafts, make this a very beautiful bird. The Yellow-billed Tropic-bird 

 (P. americanus) is a smaller species, only about thirty inches long, found on the 

 east coast of North America from Bermuda to the West Indies. It is occasion- 

 ally seen on the Florida coast and may be known at once by the yellow bill and 

 the pinkish, black-shafted middle tail-feathers. The Red-tailed Tropic-bird 

 (P. rubicaudus), normally of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, though occa- 

 sionally taken as far north as Lower and southern California, has the middle 

 tail-feathers carmine with black shafts. Mr. W. K. Fisher, who has enjoyed 

 exceptional opportunities of studying it in one of its best-known breeding centers 

 on Laysan Island, writes of its habits as follows: "It nests under the shelter of 

 bushes and not infrequently several will congregate beneath colonies of Fregata 

 aquila, occupying the ground floor as it were. The bird has a vicious temper, 

 and if one attempts to disturb or to take it from the egg, it sets up a horrible 



