The Zoologist — October, 1871. 2811 



mentioned place on the 23rd of August by Mr. Esdaile's keeper, and sent 

 to me the same day to be identified. It was a young bird of the year, with 

 the under parts white ; the irides were gi'ay, instead of the usual bright 

 green of the adult. I may mention that, even on our coast, the cormorant 

 is by no means common, the muddy water of our part of the Bristol 

 Channel being by no means attractive to birds which obtain their food 

 mostly by diving ; consequently the divers, both great northern and red- 

 throated, guillemots, razorbills, puffins, &c., as well as the shag and the 

 cormorant, do not often find their way much above Porlock, about which 

 place the water becomes clearer, although they are all common a few miles 

 further to the west on the Devon coast. Of course I am aware that 

 cormorants have been found much further inland, — to wit, King's College 

 Chapel, Cambridge, — but in these cases they appear to have followed the 

 course of rivers, even the muddy Cam having seduced one unfortunate bird 

 to its destruction ; but in this case there was no such inducement to draw 

 the bird inland. — Cecil Smith; Lydeard House, near Taunton. 



Frigate Birds in the Zoological Gardens. — I have been greatly interested 

 in the exhibition, in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, Regent's Park, 

 of two young specimens of the frigate bird [Fregata aquila) : five of these 

 strange birds were taken off the nest in the Bay of Fousecain, Central 

 America, by Captain John M'Dow, a Corresponding Member of the 

 Zoological Society, now in the service of the Panama Railway Company, 

 and are deposited in the Western Aviary. Although having abundant 

 space, these birds seem to make no attempts at flying, but the keeper can 

 induce them to display their ample wings occasionally, and their area is 

 truly magnificent. The birds are as reluctant to walk as to fly, and their 

 progress when induced to move is a series of three or four hops, the feet 

 moving simultaneously, as in sparrows. The webs between the toes are 

 very small, the toes being nearly divided to the base ; indeed the utility of 

 webbed feet is not apparent in a bird that is rarely known to swim. The beak 

 is very long and sharply hooked at the tip, and the extreme dexterity with 

 which these birds use it in catching little fishes thrown to them for food 

 makes it impossible to doubt what has often been repeated by voyagers, 

 that they take their prey entirely in the air — whether it be the Hviug 

 Exocoetus leaping out of the sea to escape the insatiable bonito, or the 

 falling dainty which some ocean bml has provided for his own eating, and 

 been compelled to relinquish to this master spiiit soaring over the surface 

 of the deep. The enormous length of the cubital joint is seen almost to 

 equal advantage whilst the wing is closed, and is densely clothed with 

 imbricated feathers, which have the appearance of scales. The cry, which 

 seems to be elicited by the approach of the keeper, is so like that of the sea 

 eagle that I could scarcely believe it was not uttered by that famihar bird. — 

 Edward Newman. 



