KELATION DE L ILE KODItlGUE. olo 



other of these two islands. Frigate Island^ {I'ile Fre</ates) must 

 be nearly a mile iu circuit (un bon tiers de lieue). There are 

 some trees upon it, which grow, so to speak, in the rock, there 

 being but very little soil. There are some tortoises on it, and it 

 is full of frigates, which lay there twice in the year, and it is the 

 only place where they lay. These frigates are all so lazy, that 

 they perch by day on the trees,- at the edge of the sea, awaiting 

 the other birds who go to fish. They make them disgorge ; after 

 an ineftectual resistance, they ai'e constrained to vomit the fish 

 which are in their gullets when the frigate devours it before it 

 reaches the w^ater. But when the largest of these birds are four 

 or five together, the frigates, however strong and agile they may 

 be, do not attack them, and thus they can feed their little ones 

 who wait for them above. The males of the frigates have 

 beneath the throat a red skin, which, when they are breeding, 

 is swollen, and becomes round and as large as a chopine bottle, 

 and red as scarlet, and at other times this skin is quite flat. 



The little islet^ which is to the N.N.E. of Frigate Island is a 

 rock without soil on it, on which there are some shearwaters. 

 There are some laud-tortoises, but very few, because the islet is 

 not large. 



The little islet'^ which is to the E. of Fte. du Falmier is a rock 

 where there are some Fouquets, Uile Desiree^ may have nearly a 

 twelfth of a league in circuit [in cot^j ipresd'zme douzaine delieues 

 de tour ; this is impossible ; the writer must have meant pres, d'un 

 douzieme de lieue de toxir .?]. There is little wood upon it, and 

 tortoises are found there, as well as upon the sister islet, and they 

 are of some elevation. 



1 Frigate Island is of basaltic rock, 120 ft. high. The Frigate, 

 according to M. Edwards, is Tachypetes minor. 



2 Mapou trees (vide Balfour, I.e., p. 365). 



.3 The little islet to the N.N.W. of Fi'igate Island must be Catharine 

 Island, 75 ft. high, and the little islet to the W. of Lascar Bay is, 

 apparently, Marianne I. 



* Z'f/e Dcdree is the sister islet {camuruJc) of Frigate I , and about 

 half its size. 



